Fire-resistant siding, windows, more house materials become popular as Northwest home builders adapt to persistent wildfires

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Fire-resistant siding, windows, more house materials become popular as Northwest home builders adapt to persistent wildfires

No one wants to live in a concrete bunker, “a compound,” as Salem builder Kelly Webb’s client calls the ultimate firesafe shelter. Instead, Webb is constructing a handsome, fire-hardened house with a contemporary metal shed roof along the Santiam River to replace a 1950s wood dwelling that burned down last year in a wildfire.

Webb of AK Webb Remodeling & Construction is employing design, technology and high fire-rated materials, developed based on hard-earned fire science, to slow down a blaze, granting his client peace of mind for now, and, in case of another inferno, precious extra time to escape.

Oregon’s dry, hot summer and concern about another devastating wildfire season are motivating many people to focus on fire preparedness to reduce the vulnerability of their homes and community. Coexisting with the fear of fire means making compromises when building a new house, or extensively retrofitting an existing one.

Since flames

World marketplaces adapt to a adjust in the Federal Reserve’s tone

FOR Seven months most investors have been singing the exact same uplifting track. Due to the fact Pfizer and BioNTech published the successful final results of trials of their covid-19 vaccine last November, the way to make money in markets has been to wager on a roaring rebound in the world wide economic system, as pent-up need for all the points the pandemic denied people—holidays, eating out, shopping—was unleashed. This “reflation” trade lifted the prices of commodities applied in development, this sort of as copper and lumber, to report heights. It lifted world-wide shares, particularly the share charges of corporations toughest hit by the pandemic, this kind of as cruise operators and stores. The currencies of rising economies, which are likely to gain extra than most from world wide financial power, rallied against the greenback and the euro. Bond yields climbed together with expectations of speedy development and higher inflation.