{"id":463894,"date":"2025-04-30T05:35:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T12:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=463894"},"modified":"2025-05-02T12:50:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T19:50:53","slug":"california-fire-home-hardening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_es\/housing\/2025\/04\/california-fire-home-hardening\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the first fire-resistant neighborhood. Now what about the rest of California?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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En resumen<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

Dixon Trail is the first purpose-built \u201cwildfire resilient neighborhood\u201d in the United States. Making that a reality for the millions of Californians who already live in harm\u2019s way is a daunting and costly challenge that lawmakers are only just beginning to grapple with. \n<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

The homes in the half-built subdivision look a lot like all the others nestled up against the parched, shrubby hills of Escondido, north San Diego County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But look a little closer. The gutters and vents are enclosed in a thin, wire mesh. Each window is double-paned, the glass tempered to withstand the heat of a wildfire, the stucco around the shutters resistant to flame. The privacy fences, a suburban staple, look like wood, but are actually brown-tinted steel. Every foundation sits behind a moat of gravel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National mega-developer KB Home is marketing Dixon Trail as the first purpose-built \u201cwildfire resilient neighborhood<\/a>\u201d in the United States. The next time fire rips through the chaparral in surrounding hills (a question of when, not if) this cluster of homes is being built to keep the flames at the subdivision\u2019s edge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though only half of the 64 homes have been constructed, the development had its grand opening earlier this month. No one from KB would say as much, but in purely marketing terms, the timing couldn\u2019t have been better. For years, wildfire-resilient home and neighborhood design has been a niche consideration for many California homeowners. January\u2019s Los Angeles firestorms have made it feel more like an urgent necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBuyers want to feel safe in their homes and this is a really big plus for them,\u201d said Steve Ruffner, who oversees KB projects across the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The design of each house and the layout of the entire subdivision \u2014 with healthy buffers between each building and scant flammable vegetation \u2014 meet standards set by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, a research nonprofit funded by the insurance industry. The institute began issuing its \u201cwildfire prepared\u201d designations to homes in 2022. Think organic certification on produce, except for homes built to withstand wildfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time the institute plans to give its stamp of approval to an entire neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building a fire resilient home from scratch is one thing. Bringing older homes up to that heightened standard is a more daunting and costly challenge \u2014 and one that California lawmakers at the state and local level are only beginning to grapple with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millions of Californians<\/a> already live in tinderbox canyons and at the edges of shrub fields and overgrown forests. An unknown number live in homes built before 2008, when the state introduced its wildfire-minded building code<\/a> for new construction in high hazard areas. Some home-hardening retrofits<\/a> are cheap and DIY-able. Others less so. A report from 2024<\/a> by the independent research group Headwater Economics put the cost to harden a two-story, 2,000 square-foot single family home at anywhere from $2,000 to \u201cmore than $100,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karen Collins, vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, calls these retrofits \u201cpre-disaster mitigation\u201d measures. As wildfires grow more severe and costly, these measures can offer \u201ca huge return on investment from what is otherwise spent at the loss,\u201d she said. Translated from insurance speak: Replacing a roof before a fire is cheaper than replacing an entire house afterward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut yes, to retrofit and put on new roofs and new siding, that gets into the multiple tens of thousands of dollars, so there’s a public policy trade off,\u201d she said. \u201cLike, how do we do this?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Steve Ruffner, regional general manager for KB Home’s coastal division, touches a window with two panes of tempered glass on the side of a model home in the Dixon Trail neighborhood of Escondido on April 24, 2025. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some local governments \u2014 albeit not many \u2014 offer grants and incentives to fire-wary homeowners hoping to make these upgrades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The insurance industry is beginning to offer discounts to some homeowners who make firewise changes, though the promised savings are often smaller than many homeowners expect or demand<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There aren\u2019t any statewide plans to help harden California\u2019s housing stock en masa<\/em>, though a pilot project is underway and the Legislature is considering a few other ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond changes in policy, California homeowners, planners, real estate agents and developers may need to change the way they think about wildfire risk, said Yana Valachovic, a forest health and fire expert with the University of California. Rather than viewing home hardening as a luxury expense, or even a necessary cost that must be begrudgingly assumed, such protections might just need to become standard features of homeownership across the increasingly fire-prone American West<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt needs to be spoken about in the advertisement of the house, because these are all keys to insurability and the protection of your investment,\u201d said Valachovic. \u201cFuels management and home hardening are just as important as a remodeled kitchen at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fireproof home?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Home-hardening experts try to think like embers in a windstorm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Open eaves (the cavities beneath a roof\u2019s overhang); vents that lead into an attic; wood decks; wood shingles; wood fences; and any plants, lawn furniture, cars, sheds and trash bins stowed right up against the house \u2014 all of these present an inviting array of nooks and crannies in which embers can settle and smolder. Hardening a home means covering them up, replacing material that burns with material that doesn\u2019t, and clearing a five-foot non-combustible buffer around the house, an area state regulators call \u201czone zero<\/a>\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ember-proofing alone isn\u2019t always enough. In urban conflagrations, like the ones in Los Angeles, flames go horizontal in the gale-force winds, turning a burning home into a blow-torch trained upon its neighbors. The sheer heat radiating off of a burning structure can warp and melt window frames 20 feet away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those conditions, cement siding and tempered-glass can give a home a fighting chance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Steve Ruffner, regional general manager for KB Home’s coastal division, places his hand on a window shutter made out of non-combustible stucco material on a model home in the Dixon Trail neighborhood of Escondido on April 24, 2025. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Primero:<\/strong> Enclosed eaves that prevent heat buildup are installed on a home. \u00daltimo:<\/strong> A non-combustible metal fence is placed in front of a five-foot buffer zone in the backyard of a model home in the Dixon Trail neighborhood of Escondido on April 24, 2025. Photos by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the Insurance Institute conducted a formal forensic survey in Los Angeles, they found repeated examples<\/a> of homes where a single double-paned tempered glass window, a stucco wall or a walkway free of decorative plants likely kept the flames at bay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts turn to the surviving homes for lessons after every major fire. In Maui, after the Lahaina waterfront burned in 2023, images of a single red-roofed home, lonely and seemingly untouched, went viral. Reporting later revealed that just prior to the disaster, the homeowners replaced the roof with a thick metal one and removed its surrounding vegetation. They were trying to keep out termites, not flames<\/a>, but fire doesn\u2019t consider motive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There may be no such thing as a fire-proof house, but if vulnerability to disaster is a numbers game, home hardening \u2014 like seat belts, bike helmets and vaccines \u2014 can up the odds of survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pilots and programs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The closest thing California has to a statewide home hardening campaign at the moment is a $117 million pilot project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

La California Wildfire Mitigation Program<\/a>, run jointly by the California\u2019s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) and the governor\u2019s Office of Emergency Services, is funding half a dozen neighborhood-wide retrofits in especially fire-prone and economically distressed corners of the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program seeks to tackle the problem of fire resilience at a community scale. Managing wildfire risk is a bit like managing an infectious disease: There\u2019s only so much a single homeowner can do if their neighbors are unprotected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFuels management and home hardening are just as important as a remodeled kitchen at this point.\u201d<\/p>Yana Valachovic, forest health and fire expert, University of California<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pilot was launched by the legislature in 2019, but is only just beginning to get off the ground<\/a>. So far, 21 homes have been retrofitted: 19 in Kelseyville, Lake County and two in Dulzura, east of San Diego. Neighborhoods in the Sierra foothills and California\u2019s far north are still working through the start-up and permitting process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each house presents its own array of costly challenges. New roofs, new siding, new windows, replacing decks, cleaning brush. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to just kinda harden the home,\u201d said Deanna Fernweh, program manager for the Lake County project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is new terrain for the state and the pilot has run into plenty of unexpected complications along the way. Fire-resistant materials are a specialty product that can be hard to source, particularly if you need something to be just the right size. Local contractors don\u2019t always know much about fire risk, nor do the local permitting officials. Some counties require construction workers to be paid union-level wages. With most of the money coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the work is also subject to rigorous environmental standards. Any work done in the spring and summer has to wait on nest surveys to ensure that construction doesn\u2019t disturb migratory or endangered birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
An aerial view of homes in the Dixon Trail neighborhood of Escondido on April 24, 2025. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All of that adds to the price tag. The cheapest retrofit so far has come in at roughly $36,000, said J. Lopez, executive director of the statewide program. That was a tidy, well-maintained home in Kelseyville. The most expensive so far was $110,000. At current funding levels, the program is on track to harden roughly 2,000 homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not likely to put a noticeable dent in the total number of vulnerable homes across the state. But Lopez said part of the goal of the pilot is to figure out just how expensive, delay-ridden and generally annoying it is to harden a neighborhood \u2014 and then figure out ways to make it all less so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the VCR first came out, I think the first ones were about $1,500,\u201d he said. \u201cI leave it to American ingenuity to come up with solutions \u2014 and we are part of that, helping move that along.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pilot is currently set to expire in 2029, though the Legislature is considerando una factura<\/a> to make it permanent. Future funding remains an open question. So far FEMA\u2019s Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grant program, which provides much of the funding for the California program, has been spared the cuts that have felled other emergency response and preparedness initiatives<\/a> under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legislators may also take up legislation<\/a> this year to shave off some of the tax revenue the state currently collects from property insurers and redirect it toward a grant program for fire-resistant roofs and vegetation management work. Another bill would create a \u201cCommunity Hardening Commission<\/a>\u201d inside the state\u2019s Department of Insurance to be tasked with recommending new home hardening rules and improving old ones. A third bill would create a state-run home hardening certification program<\/a>, with the hope being that insurers will be more likely to cover a home with the state\u2019s imprimatur. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlmost everyone knows what the things are that we have to do with home hardening,\u201d Assemblymember Steve Bennett, an Oxnard Democrat and the author of that certification bill, said at a budget committee hearing in February<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it and talked about it, but we\u2019re not really making much progress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Locals step up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Absent a comprehensive statewide hardening program, some cities are trying to fill the gaps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, Marin County voted overwhelmingly to tax itself<\/a> to fund a countywide wildfire prevention program. The program shells out roughly $20 million each year on individualized home safety assessments, home hardening and vegetation clearing grants and evacuation route clearing operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the city of Novato, the local fire district has used those funds to inspect every house in town. Homeowners can apply for matching grants \u2014 up $1,500 for home hardening and $1,000 for brush clearing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes that\u2019s enough to cover the cost of the work. Vent screens aren\u2019t expensive, and vegetation management can be cheap if a homeowner is willing to do the work themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Homes under construction in the Dixon Trail neighborhood of Escondido on April 24, 2025. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But often the grants aren\u2019t nearly enough to cover all the called-for work. In Novato at least, a financial nudge is often all that people need, said Fire Marshal Lynne Osgood. According to data collected by the fire district over the last fiscal year, the city doled out half a million dollars in these matching grants to fund home-hardening projects; homeowners spend four times that amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(Novato homeowners) are getting pressure from the insurance companies, they\u2019re seeing, year after year, major conflagrations where thousands upon thousands of people are losing their homes,\u201d Osgood said. \u201cThey are highly motivated.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where Marin County is offering carrots, other cities are using sticks. Across the Bay, the city of Berkeley just passed its own \u201czone zero\u201d regulations<\/a> which will require hill-dwelling residents to keep the five feet around their homes free of plants, wood fencing and other flammable odds and ends. The new policy will go into effect at the beginning of next year when it will be enforced with the possibility of daily fines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a few years ahead of the rest of the state. Cal Fire is scrambling to cobble together specific \u201czone zero\u201d regulations for all high hazard areas<\/a>, something a state law directed them to do by 2023<\/a>. In February, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an orden ejecutiva<\/a> directing the department to \u201caccelerate\u201d its regulatory process and produce a final rule by the end of the year. The most recent draft<\/a> of the regulations would give homeowners three years to comply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Do this or you\u2019re done’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Byers Enterprises has run a steady roofing business out of Grass Valley, just west of the Tahoe National Forest, since the late 1980s. In 2022, it started a specific division for home hardening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a real groundswell of interest,\u201d said Jeff Fierstein, the company\u2019s general manager. Some of that interest is due to the Los Angeles fires, which put fire risk top of mind for many. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he said roughly half of his customers are turning to him out of duress. \u201cThe insurance companies are saying \u2018Do this or you\u2019re done,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not every fire-prone jurisdiction has Marin\u2019s resources or Berkeley\u2019s political appetite for new mandates. For the majority of Californians living in the so-called wildland urban interface<\/a>, the most powerful nudge toward home hardening comes in the form of an insurance company\u2019s premium hike or non-renewal notice<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A regulation from 2023 is forcing California insurers to offer discounts to homeowners who make certain home hardening investments<\/a> or join Firewise communities, voluntary neighborhood disaster preparedness groups. But the approval process has been slow, the discounts vary from carrier to carrier, the requirements coming from insurers don\u2019t always match the state\u2019s own standards and the savings on offer are, according to some, miserly<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

California property insurers are not in an especially discounting mood. After a decade of staggering wildfire-related losses, surging inflation and what the industry has long characterized as a sclerotic regulatory environment that doesn\u2019t allow them to cover their costs, many carriers are looking for any excuse to drop California customers<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That dour climate might begin to change soon, said Janet Ruiz, a spokesperson for the industry association, the Insurance Information Institute. The state\u2019s Department of Insurance is rolling out a series of policy changes<\/a> aimed at enticing insurers back into the market. That overhaul \u201cshould bring more insurance companies into writing more policies,\u201d putting them on a stronger financial footing and making them more willing to cut certain homeowners a break. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
An aerial view of homes under construction in the Dixon Trail neighborhood of Escondido on April 24, 2025. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even with the right regulations in place, insurers aren\u2019t known for embracing change, said Dave Jones, California\u2019s former Department of Insurance head who now runs the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley\u2019s law school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month, Jones and the nonprofit Nature Conservancy released a new, first-of-its-kind insurance policy for Tahoe-Donner, one of the country\u2019s largest homeowners associations. In exchange for years of tree thinning and brush clearing work, the Truckee-based HOA will receive nearly 40% off on its insurance policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s a very conservative industry,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need to show them that an insurer is able to (make money doing this) before others will follow suit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upside: The new policy shows that at least one insurer \u2014 in this case, Globe Underwriting, based in London \u2014 believes it can account for the reduced risk that comes with certain wildfire mitigation efforts and then pass some of those savings onto customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The downside: The policy only covers commonly held land, not individual homes and, at least for now, the Nature Conservancy is footing the $55,000 annual premium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe big success here is that the insurance policy was written at all because this is an area where insurers are pulling out and it was written because of the forest treatment work that the homeowners association is undertaking,\u201d said Jones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s forest management programs, zone zero mandates or home hardening grants, the public is only going to support these taxpayer-funded initiatives if they start to open up the insurance market and bring down premiums, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPart of what we’re trying to do here is demonstrate that this can be done, convince insurers to do it, but also continue to build public support for these necessary investments,\u201d said Jones. \u201cBecause this stuff is not inexpensive to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\tRead More on housing and wildfires<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t
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\u2018It will not be survivable\u2019:\u00a0Lake Tahoe region could be a deathtrap during major wildfires<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Why California keeps putting homes where fires burn<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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