OUTCOME: Community Health and Safety

Problem

As more people live in the WUI, there is greater potential for wildfires to become conflagrations that risk homes and lives. While changes to land use planning and zoning, including newer construction standards, can be used to reduce further development in fire-prone areas and to ensure that new construction is more ignition-resistant, many thousands of existing homes are already at risk.

Solution

Home Ignition Zone - Protect at-risk homes and neighborhoods through support for home hardening and defensible space.

Background and Context

Structure ignition commonly results from windblown embers landing on flammable materials on and around homes. Home hardening to make structures less flammable, creating and maintaining defensible space around structures, and installing and maintaining fire-safe landscaping beyond the first 5’ around a structure can reduce the intensity of flames reaching structures and make it easier for firefighters to defend them safely and successfully. Home hardening can reduce wildfire risk up to 40% and home hardening combined with vegetation management can reduce wildfire risk up to 75% (Czajkowski et al 2020). Home hardening and defensible space projects are most successful when entire neighborhoods and communities participate, as ignition of neighboring homes is one of the greatest risks that any given home will burn (Knapp et al 2021).

There are many barriers to creating safer home ignition zones in North Coast communities. Homeowners in rural and Tribal areas often cannot afford fire insurance and/or the costs of home hardening or replacing landscaping. Many homeowners in these areas have been dropped for fire insurance coverage by their providers or received large rate increases. Renters are particularly vulnerable, as they often cannot afford to invest in hardening a rental property and their landlords may be unwilling to make such investments. Even when home hardening is required by local or county ordinances, it is challenging to notify property owners about their obligations and enforce compliance. Counties like Mendocino that have abatement ordinances on the books may not have staff and legal resources to implement an abatement assessment and enforcement program, and will require additional resources to do so. In a 2020 survey by the Watershed Research and Training Center, 61% of North Coast CBO respondents said they need help in managing defensible space programs and 58% said they need capacity to implement defensible space programs. Conducting defensible space work around homes was one of the four most common capacity needs identified by the respondents.

Recommendations

The risk to homes must be addressed in a systematic way through a comprehensive wildfire home ignition zone program, using lessons learned from the state’s seismic retrofit program. Just as earthquakes cannot be prevented but must be adapted to, living in a fire-adapted landscape requires adaptation to the risk of wildfire. First, the communities most vulnerable to wildfire and least able to mitigate fire risk should be identified and prioritized for home hardening. The goal should be to treat all or as many homes as possible, neighborhood by neighborhood, to take advantage of the “herd immunity” effect of hardening entire neighborhoods (Knapp et al 2021). Technical and financial assistance should be offered to homeowners and renters to offset the costs of home hardening and creating fire-safe landscaping. The cost for such a program will be high, so it will be necessary to leverage multiple funding sources including FEMA pre-disaster grants, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing programs and/or tax rebates, incentives, NRCS, CDBG, cost reductions through aggregated community-scale activities, and other mechanisms. Grant or incentive programs should be developed for rural and Tribal areas as well as more urban environments.

More inspectors are needed at the state, county, and local levels to ensure that homes and landscapes are defensible. Third-party inspectors can help alleviate the backlog and increase the number of annual inspections. Many Fire Safe Councils now provide home inspections to local residents. Sonoma County has its own inspection program that works alongside CAL FIRE. This program – or elements thereof – should be expanded to other parts of the North Coast region.

Actions

  • Identify North Coast communities most at risk of fire. Identify and prioritize disadvantaged and vulnerable communities and community members, including elderly, low-income, and/or disabled residents, as well as areas where a high proportion of residents are renters or lack cars.
  • Prioritize home hardening in highest-risk areas by community, with a goal to create community-level “herd immunity” by hardening as many homes as possible in high-risk areas, thus reducing house-to-house ignition.
  • Ensure that wildfire hazard mapping tools are publicly available so that residents can know their level of risk.

  • Research the average costs of home retrofitting and estimate the total cost and per year cost of retrofitting homes in high-risk communities.
  • Evaluate these communities’ capacity to carry out needed home hardening and defensible space work (assuming funding is available).
  • Work with CAL FIRE, CAL OES, and other relevant partners to address the delta between each community’s identified need and its capacity to fulfill the need.

Fund and support local fire prevention programs conducted by Tribes, VFDs, FSCs, COPE groups, and other community organizations and fire prevention programs.

  • Create a proposal for a wildfire home hardening program building upon the earthquake retrofit program Brace and Bolt, improving upon limitations identified by that program’s implementers, and funded by pre-disaster grants with homeowner match.
  • Implement PACE pilot programs for wildfire mitigation and safety improvements in designated WUI areas, paired with matching state grant funds for safety improvements.
  • Create regional assistance programs targeting homeowners who are elderly, low-income, or disabled to help them comply with home hardening requirements.
  • Consider tax break/incentive program for home hardening modeled on clean energy and electric car rebate programs.
  • Support the expansion of programs providing financial support for fire-safe landscaping and home hardening programs, particularly for seniors, renters, and low-income residents.
  • Keep abreast of the development of the California Wildfire Mitigation Program and work with CalOES, CAL FIRE, local Fire Safe Councils, and RCDs to facilitate its implementation throughout the North Coast region.
  • Fund and support the development or expansion of community chipper programs in all NCRP counties with the goal of providing all residents with at least three chipping opportunities per year.
  • Fund and support the development or expansion of free home hardening and defensible space home inspection programs in all NCRP counties.
  • Work with insurance industry and regulators to ensure that landowners implementing home hardening and defensible space measures can qualify for coverage and/or lower premiums.
  • Create a standardized home-hardening training program with customer-oriented software support (such as the FireAside program being used in Marin County), consistent standards statewide, and a continuation of AB 38 funding to assist homeowners with home-hardening retrofits that can be implemented by small, rural businesses, craftspeople, and laborers.
  • Create and fund programs for bulk purchase or discount pricing of basic home-hardening essentials such as 1/8” mesh and gutter covers.
  • Accelerate subsidy funding for homeowners to deploy key Zone 0 (first 5’ around homes) defensible-space measures implemented by existing local workforce resources.

  • Train interested members of Tribes, local fire agencies, Fire Safe Councils, other community-based organizations, and UCCE to conduct Home Ignition Zone inspections and advise residents on home hardening and defensible space.
  • Explore the development of a Home Ignition Zone Inspector certification and training program at regional community colleges.
  • Create a regional home hardening workforce development program to train a local workforce in home hardening methods.
  • Link existing workforce development programs to qualified home hardening and defensible space contractors.
  • Create a fire safe landscaping course to train landscaping contractors in fire safe practices. A good example from Sonoma County is the Sonoma Resource Conservation District’s project in the Mark West Watershed.
  • Create an online database of qualified contractors who can carry out home-hardening and defensible space work in the Home Ignition Zone.

  • Support local fire department and Fire Safe Council prevention and education programs, including expanding these programs to include the best available science and practices.
  • Create a North Coast version of the Sustainable Defensible Space website of the Santa Monica Mountains.
  • Promote and sponsor widespread training and outreach of the SAFER (Sustainable and Fire Resistant Landscapes) program of UC ANR.
  • Partner with QWEL (Qualified Water-Efficient Landscaper) to develop a fire-safe landscape module for certification of landscape professionals based on UCCE training materials.
  • Create outreach materials for renters modeled on the Tahoe RCD resource Prepare for Wildfire: A Guide for Lake Tahoe Long-Term Renters.

References and Resources

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