The Palisades Fire destroyed more than 1,200 buildings. Yet one newly built home—surrounded by ashes and charred foundations—stood almost untouched. How did it survive when its neighbors didn’t?

A couple things:

• This is a super interesting subject. The historic character, livability, and modern disaster-resistance is a triangle where you often have to pick just one or two, which leads to some tough decisions that have major impacts on families and communities. Like one of the things he mentions is that the architect completely eliminated plants from the property. That's great for fire resistance, but not so great for other things if the entire town decides to go the same route (which he does bring up later in the video). I don't think there's any objectively right answer, but definitely lots of good (and important) discussion points to be had.

• This reminds me a lot of a community in Florida that got major news coverage after one of the recent hurricanes (was it Milton? Or maybe Ian?) because it was mostly unscathed. The building materials and windows were all hurricane resistant, and the entire community did things like having underground cables and water storage, as well as solar power and battery backups for every home. Not super feasible for every single person, but definitely something that should become more common as time goes on and these disasters continue to happen.

• Had never seen this creator before, but his videos seem right up my alley, so thanks! Always appreciate your recommendations, cfabbro!