Jakarta – From the Los Angeles wildfire disaster comes a viral story of a house surviving a hellish sea of flames. Here are the efforts made by the house owner.
The house that survived is located on the shores of Malibu, in the Palisades area heavily affected by the fires. It belongs to David Steiner, a 64-year-old originally from Texas.
The house is a three-story structure valued at USD 9 million (IDR 146.6 billion). No wonder it’s expensive—it’s a beachfront property.
“This is a miracle; miracles always happen,” said Steiner when interviewed by the New York Post after the incident, as reported on Monday (1/13/2025).

As the miraculous house went viral on social media, many netizens also believed it was a miracle. Indonesian netizens, in particular, questioned whether the owner had any special efforts or practices.
Steiner, a director of a waste management company and father of three, said his house was unoccupied during the wildfire disaster. A local contractor sent him videos of the fire surrounding his property.
“I thought, that’s it; my house is gone,” he said.
To his surprise, the next day, photos of his house went viral on social media, hailed as a miraculous home that survived. The New York Post asked how this could happen.
It turns out the owner’s efforts involved seriously applying architectural knowledge to make the house disaster-resistant. Los Angeles is a seismic zone, so Steiner built his house with strong construction to withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires.
“This house has stone plaster walls and a fireproof roof. There are also 30-meter foundation piles driven into the ground to withstand waves,” said Steiner.
Effort indeed does not betray results. Steiner’s efforts to construct a disaster-resistant house saved it from the fiery inferno in Los Angeles.

“I thought it could withstand earthquakes. But I truly didn’t expect the fire to jump over the Pacific Coast Highway and cause destruction here,” he said.
According to The Daily Beast, California ecologist Alexandra Syphard released a 2019 study showing that multi-panel windows reduce the risk of total house destruction by 26%. A 2022 study published in Springer Nature by three scientists—Ji Yun Lee, Fangjiao Ma, and Yue Li—concluded that hardening homes and clearing surrounding areas of shrubs reduces the risk of wildfire damage to just 20%.
“Concrete walls and heat-resistant windows are what saved us,” said architect Greg Chasen, whose project house also survived in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles.