Most houses in the US are made of wood. In Los Angeles they often have tile/concrete roofs, but I've read that in a situation like this the problem is the vents under the edge of the roof that lead into the attic: if anything burning gets through there, the house is toast.
Source: used to live in a Los Angeles hilly suburb. If the fires get to where I used to live, that house will definitely burn despite having a cement tile roof.
Insurers require ember resistant vulcan vents and the like now. It’s a relatively minor upgrade for most homeowners since its just a mesh over the vent.
No, vulcan vents only help when the exterior is capable of resisting the fire. These winds threw fist sized pieces of burning wood for hundreds of feet which is much harder to defend against.
All homeowners I know here have already had them installed over the last five years because of fire insurance inspections but I don’t know how representative my sample is.
Considering that winds both made the spread a lot further, faster and moving around fuel (trees/wood/material blowing around and ending up on streets and whatnot), it sounds unlikely any 1 solution would have prevented this.
Source: used to live in a Los Angeles hilly suburb. If the fires get to where I used to live, that house will definitely burn despite having a cement tile roof.