Recall TV images of Florida and Southern California in 2024. Add Lahaina in 2023 and the 2021 Marshall fire. Structures burned, got blown away, and flooded.

In each instance, rebuilding is the first thought. People want to rebuild or have already rebuilt. Good for them! They have or will have a place to live — that is, until the next tornado or fire or storm surge season!

Living in Boulder, I observe the re-growth after the Marshall fire. I witness the same plywood sheathing being attached to wood 2x4s, and I am reminded of the old adage that a fool is one who repeats a mistake expecting a different result. Come on people, look at those TV images! What are the tallest things around? Brick chimneys and concrete archways and walls.

Our city, state, nation and even the whole world needs to wake up and pay attention to the impact of global warming. That warning applies to rebuilding private homes, businesses, schools, religious structures and government infrastructure.

My PhD is in nuclear physics so I am unable to solve these problems; but I have faith in our nation’s engineers, scientists and chemists to create materials for the future rebuilding of communities. Some ideas for their creativity include:

• Rapidly expanding fire-resistant foams that can be released in a threatened building to exclude air, thereby saving the furniture.

• A vacuum system that can remove the air once persons and pets are removed.

• Continually replace the air with nitrogen once persons and pets are removed.

• Build more homes underground or deep in hillsides.

If people would give up the ego of having to have the most beautiful, luxurious and decorative house in the neighborhood, less attractive exterior surfaces (poured concrete or cinderblock) could be used. Some attractiveness could result from colorful murals painted on the exterior walls.

Roofs must be fireproof as well. Cast structurally reinforced concrete A-shaped roofs that can be cast on site to be lifted into place onto pointed concrete walls by a rented crane. Layer the gap between the wall and roof with a compressible high-viscosity fireproof felt or similar product to be invented.

Flat steel pan roofs with vertical edging could be filled with water. Draining and refilling annually after removing debris would become a new business.

Windows should be shuttered inside and outside with fireproof materials sliding closed on horizontal rails.

Use science, technology and common sense to design our future structures to withstand the fire, winds, and water of a changing climate. I challenge industrial America to rise to this issue for both new construction and replacement communities. God bless America and those with eyes to see and minds to think.

Dr. Robert Rothe is a nuclear physicist who lives in south Boulder and witnessed the Marshall fire and its recovery — unfortunately totally out-of-step with the realities of this observation.