Oh My... A forest FIRE is coming near you.
This idea is only good when you know a forest fire (wildfire) is coming in a few days. It's getting closer every day, and you feel inevitable dread. But you have time to prepare. Maybe one day's notice would give you 24 hours to wrap your house in a fire blanket.
I thought of this many years ago when I had seen on the news stations everyone evacuated and people's homes abandoned for safety. Some people staying behind (against police orders) would use garden hoses to soak their house in hopes that it wouldn't catch fire.
Why couldn't they cover it in a giant fire retardant blanket? I think it's because there's no company who has made such a thing ... yet. Upon researching it recently, I see some people cover their house in metal foil. I'm sure that works - I mean all you have to do is make sure no sparks land that would start an actual fire on your roof.
A garden hose sprinkler system might almost be enough. But in many cases, in a wildfire, you might have trees or a garage or a deck catch fire thats very close to your house. then the heat and flames might be 2,000° F. Then you'd need a thick fire retardant heat blanket.
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When I researched fire blankets, they are all of the sort that you throw it onto a fire to extinguish it. (ie. a kitchen fire, barbecue... etc.) I DID find a premium fireproof fiberglass fabric, thats good to 1000° F.
To illustrate an entire house wrapped, I searched for fumigation, (roaches and termites). Some fumigation companies go back 80 years. And they've been wrapping houses all that time. All we'd have to do is make the house wrap out of a thick fireproof and heat proof blanket. So far I don't see any companies doing that. This would be a great small start up company. I'll call it fire wrap services or FWS.
Who would pay?
You would think at first the homeowners would pay to protect their house. After all it could be a million to 5 million home. Maybe there's not much incentive when you have home insurance that would pay you the entire amount of your loss . Maybe it should be the insurance companies who pay. I mean isn't it cheaper to spend $20,000 on FWS to protect a 5 million dollar house, them to pay out 5 million dollars after it's reduced to ashes?
If I had start up money, and could build five large house wraps, and hire a team of 5 men, I would go and wrap five houses where it's likely a forest fire would go through. Then after it's done, and all the news reporters show the houses untouched, then you would have better advertising than what money could buy....
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