Ingenious way RFK Jr stopped his house
from burning down in LA fires while neighbors
homes were torched
Daily Mail (UK),
by
Joe Hutchison
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
1/24/2025 9:06:26 AM
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines used a roof-mounted sprinkler system to protect their Los Angeles from the LA fires.
Kennedy, 71, and Hines, 59, live among Hollywood's elite in a stunning $6.6 million mansion in Brentwood, one of the most exclusive enclaves in the city.
After wildfires decimated the City of Angels, the fires reached the glitzy area in the Santa Monica Mountains. The home of the couple however has remained intact, thanks to their sprinkler system which was caught on camera dousing the exterior with water.
Footage captured of the system shows a mist of water emitting from the roof, hitting a tree
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
mobyclik 1/24/2025 9:22:28 AM (No. 1880872)
Will Gavin Goodhair have him arrested for Unauthorized Use of Water?
24 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 1/24/2025 9:36:02 AM (No. 1880880)
He has a tile roof as well.
23 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Newtsche 1/24/2025 9:38:04 AM (No. 1880881)
I thought you need water to sprinkle.
10 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Venturer 1/24/2025 9:43:19 AM (No. 1880889)
If you have a $6 million dollars home you can afford your own water supply from the pool to the sprinkler on the roof.
I don't know his system but he can afford it.
18 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
genius 1/24/2025 9:45:33 AM (No. 1880891)
I saw these being used 30 years ago. The swimming pool was the water source.
I don't understand why all the homes in the fire areas don't have one of these systems.
25 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
earlybird 1/24/2025 10:12:59 AM (No. 1880927)
These roof sprinkler systems have been available since at least the early 80s whhen a tennis ffriend in Santa Barbara was repping for a company that sold/installed them.
16 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
earlybird 1/24/2025 10:17:14 AM (No. 1880930)
Tile roofs are not failsafe. High winds can blow embers into the ends of cdurved tiles. Also, the water sprinkling the roof runs over the roof edges and wets down thehhouse walls.
10 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Axeman 1/24/2025 10:24:14 AM (No. 1880935)
The "eye-watering" and "stunning" home prices in that area are in the tens to hundreds of millions. 1 million would be a fixer-upper. 3 million is barely out of upper middle class. 6.6 million is average for someone with secure income.
We participate in the Firesafe program here in our forested community and rooftop sprinklers are not recommended. Under eave misters are suggested but only with sufficient water supply. A pool would be good but there would need to be power to run the pumps. We have 10,000 gallons in tanks that will never have less than 2500 and a diesel standby generator. Best defense is to clear combustibles away from the house and reduce ways for blowing embers to ignite flammables like through vents and doors, especially debris in the rain gutters. We do everything we can to make it easy for the firefighters to defend our house.
10 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
earlybird 1/24/2025 10:26:38 AM (No. 1880939)
Many homes in Mandeville Canyon have been there for ages and are/were somewjat more modest than this. A friend, now deceased, lived in one.
Am I the only one who gets tired of the DM tabloid's snark?
16 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
DVC 1/24/2025 10:41:33 AM (No. 1880948)
I have suggested here that a roof sprinkler system, with dual water supplies, city water and backup pool water, and a gasoline powered pump to deal with power losses is a fairly obvious fire prevention method. I'm quite surprised that these aren't common, even required by insurance companies. To this engineer, who had a long career innovating to solve problems, this seems straightforward.
I'm glad someone is doing, perhaps it will become more common. TQ has said that they have such a system on their NorCal home, and that is a good move.
7 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
DVC 1/24/2025 11:38:00 AM (No. 1880997)
Re #7, some of the red tile roofs that I have seen have a dab of mortar filling that end of the edge tiles. It would seem to be a good idea.
9 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 1/24/2025 12:51:38 PM (No. 1881040)
Future building requirement. Frankly surprised that California, with all of its regulations, didn't already have it on the books.
6 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DVC 1/24/2025 1:10:08 PM (No. 1881052)
RE #9, nope. I'm entirely sick of DM, to the point that I never go to their site. They hate Trump and always twist any story about him, his family or his administration.
6 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
JSanders 1/24/2025 1:30:16 PM (No. 1881068)
Common sense and preparation. Industrious and responsible, not ingenious.
5 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
kdog 1/24/2025 2:14:20 PM (No. 1881091)
The media finally finds a celebrity they can snidely use the term "gilded life" against. Meanwhile all kinds of other people who's lives are even more "gilded" are never referred to that way. They did what any reasonable person with money should have done, and the use of sprinkler systems is anything but new. Instead of gilded the more apt adjective would be intelligent. All that aside, based on the pictures NO HOUSES on that street burned.
3 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
sunset 1/24/2025 3:25:30 PM (No. 1881136)
It's illegal too sell high volume sprinklers in California.
0 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Timber Queen 1/24/2025 4:55:41 PM (No. 1881198)
#8 - Our mountain subdivision has been met the requirements for a Certified Fire Wise Community. Last year we got a grant from Fire Wise for $300,000 and cleared the underbrush from our main road, twenty feet on each side, for five miles.
#10 - Thanks for the honorable mention. TK was a LA cop during one of the fires in Malibu in the '70s. After the fire he was patrolling the neighborhoods for looters. In the vast destruction, there was one house untouched. He saw the owner outside and stopped. The owner showed him the sprinklers on the roof that were fed by his pool and the pump he dropped into the pool before evacuating.
TK never forgot and he devised our system. TK used agricultural sprinklers made of brass; two on the house roof, one on the solar shed housing the lithium batteries, one for the workshop/wood shed, and one for the propane tank. When we evacuate we will put our gas cans within the propane tank shelter; L-shaped hardy board panels, with a red sign that says "Flammables". Our water source is our own well; 113 feet deep with water at 24 feet, and it pumps 8 gallons a minute. We also have 2500-gallon water tank.
When we evacuate, we have every expectation we will return to standing homestead.
3 people like this.
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