[dinodino]

I’m guessing from your post that you’re not familiar with Irvine. The roofs are all clay, and they are quite high—watering them down is an impossibility.

[logician2u]

I grew up in Orange, when Irvine was no more than a gas station, a store and headquarters of the Irvine Ranch. The gas station got a lot of business from southbound traffic ‘cause it was the last one until Capistrano

Looking at Google Maps, there are a whole lot of houses in the area north of I-5 with red roofs, just as you say.

No doubt mandated because of their proximity to the rangeland and thus far unpopulated areas to the north and east, and developers love those red tile roofs that complement pseudo-Spanish architecture.

Fireproof? Not likely, since many are two-story as you say, but with overhangs, balconies and excessive vegetation right up to the wood-framed windows. Also, it looks like the garage doors in the Orchard Hills development, just a short distance from the fire’s origin, are wood.

With nobody around to drown embers, there could be some serious fire damage. Fire departments aren’t equipped to foam entire subdivisions.