Part of the article describing what made this sole-surviving house special:

Greg Chasen’s house in Pacific Palisades, which he built in 2024, still stands while the neighboring homes burned down. The house on Iliff Street is the “single one” that “remains intact,” Mansion Global reported.

“If it weren’t for several fire-resilient design strategies, the home would have been destroyed,” Bloomberg reported.

Chasen, an architect who designed the house, said the home he built “for a dear friend” boasts several fire-proofing features. Several of these follow the principles of passive home design.

…

To reduce or even eliminate the need for heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, a passive house is built airtight, using strong exterior insulation, triple-pane windows, and construction methods that ensure no heat is transferred across the exterior of the building. No outdoor air seeps in, and no indoor air escapes.

This airtight construction is one of the reasons the house could withstand a blaze.

As Bloomberg reported, the house does not have eaves, overhangs, or attic vents “to allow sparks to get inside the roof, which is metal, with a fire-resistant underlayment.”

In addition, Chasen’s fire-proofing choices include “a protected area free of vegetation, fenced off by cast-in-place concrete garden walls.”