Freely Thinking on Housing and Bush or Brush Fires in the USA and Australia

Freely Thinking on Housing and Bush or Brush Fires in the USA and Australia

“Once a house is built, it has to protect its occupants and not them protecting the house.”

Could someone tell me why the entire wild brush or bush fires are ever concentrated in California and Australia? Africa that is clad with bush and jungles and has got climatic similarities with Australia and California do not cry like this every year. Have the inhabitants of these regions ever heard of clearing fire paths every spring? That is done in Europe and by most African villages and they do not “cry of fire again” every year with the lost of several lives, properties and livestock.

Have peoples in these regions ever thought of having sprinklers surrounding their properties so that in the event of fire out break being fanned by the wind they could be turned on? Have they ever considered building fire proofed houses? Is there any reason why Californians and Australians should use wood for construction when they could use concrete and tiles instead of shingles for their roofing? These are fire proofed materials. Is there any reason why people build in isolations in wooded or bush areas when they know that their homes are flammable? Is there any reason why California whose climate is not inclement should build like those person up in the north where there are extremes of temperatures? People are better off using local materials in their areas for construction as that is the way nature distributes resources and would protect those who make good use of them.

Do you ever hear the French and Swiss and British crying of massive fires as in America and California above all yearly? Do you hear these cases in Brazil? Why is it that it only affects those areas peopled by Anglo-Saxons who left Europe and have thrown away their tradition of building solid fire proofed houses? Why is it that it affects the affluent societies and not the poor? One person told me that constructing fire proofed houses in North America would be so expensive that no one would be able to afford them. Why is it that the haves build them? Most high rising penthouses are fire proofed and these are mostly afforded by the very rich.

The irony is that in countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa that are poorer, fire proofed houses are mandatory and they even have concrete tiles and concrete walls that are impenetrable by the most violent of bush fires. This goes with houses in the Middle East particularly in Israel where a mortar could set houses on fire at any given time. Do North Americans and Australians have to wage a war with some Moslem fundamentalists before they could change their designs and construction of houses that could withstand fire and other natural hazards?

In a country like Zimbabwe, steel roofing is cheaper than wood and no amount of fire could burn them down. Besides they use concrete tiles that could be copied by all around the world. Sand is so plentiful and Africans could set up industries to produce such material from the Sahara and Namib deserts sand for export. Dry walls could be replaced by concrete walls. These are feasible but one person has to start. We are tired of hearing death caused by bush or electric fires or lightning every year. Are you not tired? You should if you are human and care for others.

This may not be the case with others. I hear conservatives shaking their heads that my comments could put a dent in the pickets of Rona, Rena, Home Depots and other suppliers of flimsy housing materials in North American building industries. Could regions like Australia and North America not copy traditional houses in New Zealand, Austria, Italy, Southern Africa etc.? I do not mean shacks that sprawl the suburbia of Johannesburg and Cape Town. That should be a shame of the African successive African governments that took over from the racist Caucasian apartheid regimes.

When people talk of houses in North America you will think of solid concrete or brick or stone houses, the sorts of houses you will fine in the suburb of Enugu, Abuja, Geneva, and Rome, Foncha Street at Bamenda or St. Augustine’s Junction, Kumbo. They look flashy but the majority of them are simply paper walls, clad with flammable plastic materials and timber roofs clad with flammable shingles. The life span of most of these is just only ten years before they start falling apart. That is good for the capitalist economy but are buyers so low and naive that they would not want to get the best out of the money? They do but the building industries are monopolistic and there are fewer options. On account of that, the housing market is not competitive and that is too bad for an apparently developed economy.

Do you know why most North Americans will not at this time buy their own cars or vehicles they had been used to since 1914? It is because they were not worthy of the money they paid for. They turn to European and Japanese cars and everyone is panicky and flying in executive jets to go and ask their governments to bail them out of the falling demand for their badly designed vehicles. That is still not the right way to do it. The right way is to ask the buyers what they want and improve upon the products instead of dumping on them as was the case in the past with the assumption that they would continue buying willy-nilly.

Let me not be carried away by my illustration with motor industries and that is a different topic for our next discussion. The joists, principles, doors, frames of houses are sometimes made of paper and wood with padding of insulation materials that are still flammable. Why could houses not be built to last forever so that next generations invest in other things other than houses? The few you see are for the very rich or those built by the first European settlers in North America. What will the present generation leave for the next? Would it be the same poor techniques and materials? How do they expect those houses to be speared from man-made or natural disasters as outbreaks of fire when they are not well constructed and fortified against these calamities? The inhabitants cry every year and no changes are made in the designs and material for construction of houses for the ordinary peoples. Has a year ever bypassed without houses being burnt down in California? Be honest with me and tell me the truth Mr. Mayor of Los Angeles?

Sincerely speaking, building companies are so selfish and go into the field with the assumption that we know better than the people who buy the houses we build. Is that not the same haughty attitude of the automobile industries in North America? Why will you diplomats and students after your services in North America not buy North American cars to take back to your countries in Africa, Europe or the Middle East? It is because they are badly designed. They will not like to hear me utter this constructive criticisms but I have motor mechanic experience and can challenge them. The Toyota was the American jeep the Japanese copied and modified. The Japanese had their training in German and used those skills or knowledge well in their design. Toyota vehicles entered the US market through the back door and are toppling the US and Canadian GMC, Chrysler, etc. These companies are not moronic. They know the answers but still have the feeling that they are far away and insulated from the other manufactures in the world and that the time is still. Are they right in this century?

When you hear of the USA bankrupt, most of it owed to loans banks give to purchase flimsy houses that if left standing un-attended to collapse after a couple of years or are consumed by fire? Through such houses are good for consumerism but when there is a U-turn in the economy for the worst, do we not think that better design are thought of and implemented? I lived in a house in England that had been standing there for five hundred years. You would never get a good number of houses that last so long in North America unless you have to patch them and rebuild year in year out. Once a house is build it has to protect you and not you protecting the house. Why? It is so because flimsy ones are good for demand but when we are getting poorer and no longer controlling two-third of the world economy, would it not signal that you change they way you do things? We better keep our houses in order or we die or bank these for our children. What is the opportunity cost here?
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When there are fire damages the insurance companies come in and pay hefty sums of money. Is that good business? The fact that there are out breaks of fire is good business for insurance companies. That is sad as ideally all houses should be fire proofed, and provided with solid bunkers that are equally fire and bullet or bomb proofed. As in Switzerland, they should have food supplies and water that that could keep occupants at least for one month in case of out breaks of fires, wars, or other unforeseen contingencies. Are Americans and Australians prepared for all these? They are far from the center of the world and have forgotten how to live with nature but artificial glamorous life that provides no protection to the environments and their homes. Could they take a new leaf after reading my write up? “Naught,” they will say that it is revolutionary and if they change they would be kowtowing to a man from a Third World Country and that does not augur well with their high status. Do not laugh but sympathize with them.

Dr. Viban Viban Ngo.


Post Script: Readers who want  to know more on this topic are recommended to read my article'Plants' Intelligence' below.