Massive Fires Break Out In Downtown & Westlake Areas Overnight (house, affordable housing)

[thedwightguy]

We simply don't do this in BC even though it's the home of the forest! With all these grow ops trying to burn their condo or apt. down I think we should stay the course. No matter the building code there are other reasons for avoiding wood above three or four stories. I want to be able to jump to the ground!

Hard to figure out how that fire started because it was not to close up.
Usually at close up you get your new construction fires if not arson.

[Texamichiforniasota]

Originally Posted by thedwightguy

The LA building is seven stories. Since when do you go wood frame on seven stories? What has LA done with building code since I've been gone? Frame is three, at the most four stories has been recently introduced I believe in Seattle. Seven? Concrete since the Romans invented a local, low impact, safe, and renewable resource.
You're not getting me in a wood frame structure anywhere near the "hood". Is that correct, wood???

Wood-frame is up to 7 stories, but I think the bottom 2 stories have to be steel or concrete, with the 5 top floors wood-framed. That's why so many building in LA are 7 stories, 8 or above have to be all steel, so to make the numbers work out for the more expensive construction costs, most buildings that are above seven are actually 14 or more stories. Very few 7-13 story buildings in LA. Once walled with fired breaks and with sprinklers in place it would probably do ok in a fire, but with open frames during construction, and with all indications that this was arson with accelerant applied, it burned quickly.

[GatsbyGatz]

I think it's a possibility that the fire was caused by a city-planning nerd with a vengeance. This Palmer guy has a lot of haters who are quite vocal about how atrocious his buildings are. Seems coincidental that this building was met with public scorn for it's hideous design and life-sucking skybridge, and now it has burned to the ground...

[jm1982]

I'm sure he has insurance on the project right ?

And also I'm guessing he will be able to rebuild the exact same thing.

This will probably just hurt other property owners in area and make insurance rates higher .

[StreetLegal]

The developer is loaded and has done multiple successful projects in the area. I am sure he has very good insurance. This will not hurt him much at all.

I hate his projects. It is like he has laid the same turd over and over again. But this is a minor setback for someone with his deep pockets.

Sad that he will get a chance to place more of his excrement on Broadway including with one of his signature stupid sky bridges. That kind of thing might make sense in Santa Clarita but not along historic Broadway.

[tijlover]

And the Mexican are laughing and laughing at our insanity of building with wood, rather than concrete!

In Mexico, you can't even get insurance on a house, motel, apartment building built out of wood, concrete all the way!

Our powerful lobbying lumber companies wouldn't have it any other way, and they've deluded us all into believing it's more expensive to build with concrete! And these fire trap wooden mid-rise apartment buildings have been sprouting up all over the country, city by city, disasters waiting to happen! I wouldn't live in one of these buildings even if the rent was free!

Why wood? Speed! Far faster to build with wood! And, yes, the first floor or 2 must be concrete, and from there, upwards, wooden construction allowed! And how dare they call these luxury apartment buildings!!!

I'm glad this happened! This may put a stop to this madness of building these fire-trap apartment buildings!

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by tijlover

And the Mexican are laughing and laughing at our insanity of building with wood, rather than concrete!

In Mexico, you can't even get insurance on a house, motel, apartment building built out of wood, concrete all the way!

Our powerful lobbying lumber companies wouldn't have it any other way, and they've deluded us all into believing it's more expensive to build with concrete! And these fire trap wooden mid-rise apartment buildings have been sprouting up all over the country, city by city, disasters waiting to happen! I wouldn't live in one of these buildings even if the rent was free!

Why wood? Speed! Far faster to build with wood! And, yes, the first floor or 2 must be concrete, and from there, upwards, wooden construction allowed! And how dare they call these luxury apartment buildings!!!

I'm glad this happened! This may put a stop to this madness of building these fire-trap apartment buildings!

Well, there are those earthquake thingies.

Wood frame is just a bit better than a number of alternatives in that case.

Jury's out on what I call the "Asian style" multiple concrete layers with rebar type construction.

on the taller residential stuff I see they have switched from steel frame to "Asian style" in recent years, all up and down the West coast. I guess they saw it being done up in Vancouver BC and said, what the heck, let's try that.

One of these days a 7+ will tell us who is right.

[tijlover]

There's been some mighty big Quakes, up and down the Pacific earthquake belt, from Alaska to the tip of Chile. Chile has had some 8.0+ quakes, and if you look at the damage to the high rises, with the exception of that poorly constructed high rise featured in Concepcion, very little damage!

And given the intensity of that quake in Japan, and others they've had, has any high rise been impacted in high rise modern-day Tokyo?

Wood is used, primarily, for the speed factor! Get it up as fast as possible! And doesn't haste always make waste?

[nightlysparrow]

Confirmed as arson today:

Downtown LA fire determined to be arson, LAFD and ATF confirm | abc7.com

[disgruntled la native]

I'm not condoning anyone getting hurt or injured and nobody was. But we need to set back greedy wealth and developers. So maybe this wasn't such a bad thing.