‘It was built for this’: how design helped spare some homes from the LA wildfires

As fires set LA ablaze, some houses are left standing amid ashes thanks to concrete walls, class A wood - and luck

When last week's fires in Los Angeles set parts of the city ablaze, one viral image was of a lone house in Pacific Palisades that was left standing while all of the homes around it were destroyed.

Architect Greg Chasen said luck was the main factor in the home's survival, but the brand-new build had some design features that also helped: a vegetation-free zone around the yard fenced off by a solid concrete perimeter wall, a metal roof with a fire-resistant underlayment, class A wood and a front-gabled design without multiple roof lines.