As I look out the back window of my home at the base of the Berkeley hills, I’m reminded why my family and I love living in this patch of the East Bay. The yard is in spectacular bloom, a riot of greens, yellows, and, in the case of a rockrose I’m particularly fond of, bright pink. Being out among the foliage as it grows—or rather, overgrows—from fence line to fence line is what sold me on relocating here from our San Francisco apartment.
But there’s a flip side: the podocarpus hanging over the roofline, silently dropping its browning leaves into our wooden gutters; the dried leaves from the gingko piling up along the back fence; the wisteria growing around the front porch, framing and enveloping it in a tangle of green and purple bunches. On a hot, dry day when the Diablo wind blows in over the hills, they’re reminders that the wrong spark, the wrong breeze, might well spell catastrophe.
Especially in the wake of January’s wildfires in Los Angeles County, which, propelled by drought conditions and 100-mph-plus winds, destroyed more than 16,000 structures and killed 30 people (and contributed to hundreds more deaths), there’s a growing sense of unease about the next Big One here in the similarly dense, dry, and wildland-urban-interfacing East Bay. The concern is both ambiguous and immediate—as global as climate change, as local as our backyard plantings. While California deals with another seemingly never-ending fire season, we’re left to ask: What’s to be done?
DISASTER HITS CLOSE TO HOME
Of course, fire threat in the East Bay isn’t some abstract idea. A century ago, the 1923 Berkeley Fire tore down through the hills to within about two blocks of where I now live, destroying nearly 600 residential buildings—a number that experts agree would have been much higher if it were to happen again today. In fact, had it not been for a fortuitous change in the winds, that fire might well have burned all of downtown. And in 1991, the Tunnel Fire destroyed 3,500 homes and claimed 25 lives as it scorched a 2.5-square-mile stretch of the Oakland hills. Since then, the state’s relationship to fire has become even more pronounced: Studies have found that California is not only experiencing more wildfires than ever—which, in turn, are more destructive than ever—but that fires are also starting earlier in the year and fire season lasts longer than in the past. That, along with the state’s ongoing drought, has led to the proliferation of megafires that have become all too common over the past decade, including the Camp, Tubbs, Carr, and Pickett fires—their names and statistics all bleeding together in our collective memories.
Even in the absence of such major events, the Bay Area has been feeling the effects of this new wildfire regime. Millions of Californians in high-risk areas have lost their home insurance policies due to nonrenewals—with 2,200 in the 94563 Orinda zip code alone, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In fact, more than a third of Orinda homeowners’ policies have been discontinued over the past five years, including over 50 percent of those held by State Farm, which announced in 2023 it would cease to write new policies anywhere in California. The 94528 zip code, northeast of Danville in Diablo, was another of the top areas for nonrenewal.
“The elephant in the room here is the blue-gum eucalyptus. [Those trees are] like a bomb waiting to go off.”—Henry DeNero, Berkeley FireSafe Council
Orinda and Moraga are, by some estimates, among the areas most prone to a wildfire turning into a devastating “urban conflagration” anywhere in the state. Blame that on the dense vegetation of the East Bay hills, the relatively crowded housing, and the problems posed by so many narrow, winding roads—a hindrance to both firefighting efforts and possible evacuation routes.
Earlier this year, the state insurance commissioner announced new rules that allow insurance companies to use wildfire catastrophe modeling in exchange for a commitment to increase the number of policies they write in fire-prone areas. As that rolls out, it will likely mean much higher monthly premiums, but fewer homeowners having to turn to California’s insurer of last resort, the FAIR Plan.
PREVENTION AND HOME HARDENING
Faced with such foreboding headwinds, it’s reasonable to ask how much individual homeowners can do to prevent another destructive wildfire in the East Bay.
Henry DeNero, with the community group Berkeley FireSafe Council, points to three straightforward, if difficult, measures that cities and residents must take to lower the risk of a wildfire that starts in the hills becoming an urban conflagration.
First, he says, municipalities must work closely with property owners and other government agencies to reduce the most hazardous vegetation that drives wildfires. “The elephant in the room here is the blue-gum eucalyptus,” DeNero says. The invasive trees, which are common throughout Tilden Regional Park and the city of Berkeley, are uniquely dangerous in a fire scenario, as they are highly flammable and prone to carry ground-level fire up into the canopy. “They’re like a bomb waiting to go off,” he adds. Clearing the understory, especially around eucalyptus groves, and thinning forests of those trees is one of the most important ways to keep natural wildfires from metastasizing into fast-moving ember storms that can skip fire lines into urban areas.
The second point is preventing such fires from turning into structure fires, as happened in Los Angeles. Once a wildfire reaches a residential area, it’s typically spread from house to house, growing exponentially as it moves. Here, the key is managing the defensible space around your home, or what experts call Zone 0. That’s the five-foot perimeter around the structure. In two neighborhoods in the Berkeley hills, a newly passed law mandates that perimeter be free of any flammable vegetation—meaning trees, plants, mulch, bark, or dead leaves. Similar ordinances have been discussed in other area cities.
Lastly, there’s home hardening—the easiest method of which is installing eighth-inch screening over all gutters and vents to prevent leaves from piling up and embers from entering the home. “That’s like 90 percent of home hardening,” says DeNero.
THE NEW PARADIGM
Vegetation thinning, defensible space, and gutter screens—on all three fronts, DeNero says the East Bay is starting to make progress, though not enough and not quickly enough.
State Prop. 4 has injected $1.5 billion into local wildfire resilience efforts, while other agencies have issued major grants to help mitigate, manage, and control fires on public and privately owned forests or grasslands, and aid home-hardening measures. The East Bay Regional Park District, for instance, received $10.9 million to reduce fire fuels by removing dead and dying trees and hazardous vegetation at Tilden, Anthony Chabot Regional Park, and Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, among other projects. Meanwhile, California’s AB 888 will provide more grant funding to low-income property owners in high-risk fire areas, helping them comply with governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order requiring ember-resistant Zone 0 brush clearance in fire-prone regions.
Do such measures spell the end of those sylvan backyard havens? Are the narrow streets of the East Bay hills and the proliferation of climbing vines and Italian cypresses not feasible in our era of megafires—destined to be replaced by cinder-block fencing, concrete pathways, and “naked homes”?
“Yes and no,” says Kristina Hill, an associate professor of landscape architecture and environmental planning and urban design at UC Berkeley. While removing a beloved tree that’s planted too close to the house can be emotionally (as well as financially and physically) difficult, it’s also an opportunity to rethink your yard.
She recommends planting in islands, which can be layered so that they look continuous from the street but don’t allow a ground fire to spread to the house. “Another thing is to use color to draw the eye away from the zero zone toward something red or hot pink,” she adds. “That’s what people will see—not the ground, but the beautiful color. That’s part of how we’re going to manage this.”
No matter what design forms yards may take, we’re all in it together, DeNero says. It’s estimated that a community like Berkeley needs at least 70 percent of homes to be hardened against fire to truly mitigate the likelihood of a fast-spreading structure fire. And the same percentage need Zone 0 defensible space cleared to keep such a fire from jumping property lines. That sounds ambitious, but the stakes are clear.
“Conditions may worsen, but we can still defend ourselves,” DeNero says. “It’s going to take years and cost a lot of money and require citizens and government to work in concert and with urgency, but it can be done. It’s not impossible.”
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (and Lungs)
Exposure to wildfire smoke can take a toll on your health.
Even if a fire is burning hundreds of miles away, there can be immediate effects on your health. Itchy, burning eyes; trouble breathing; and worsening asthma symptoms are among the short-term issues, but prolonged exposure can lead to even more serious respiratory and cardiovascular issues.
What’s in the Air?
Wildfire smoke is made up of a cocktail of noxious gases, particulates, and other toxins. Fine particulate matter is the mixture of various debris floating in our atmosphere. Fine and superfine particulate matter that is 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5) is particularly harmful. At 30 times thinner than a human hair, it can easily penetrate organs such as the lungs and contribute to a raft of serious health problems and the worsening of heart disease, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, particularly in small children, pregnant people, and the elderly.
Protect Yourself
Overall, the best way to safeguard against bad air is by staying away from it. On hazy, smoky days, check the Air Quality Index (AQI) in your area. Generally, an AQI of 100 or below meets the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for satisfactory or acceptable air; a score of 101–150 is unhealthy for people in sensitive groups. Scores of 151 or higher are unhealthy for everyone, and over 300 represents an emergency condition.
In times of elevated AQI, experts say the wisest thing to do is stay indoors with your windows shut. Run your air conditioner in recirculate mode to keep dirty air outside. Check to see if your HVAC has a filter rated “MERV 13” or higher, which can trap 90 percent of particles 3.0 microns or over, and 85 percent of particles that are 1.0–3.0 microns. Particularly if you have small children, those with respiratory issues, or older adults living with you, create a “clean room” by closing off a space and placing a portable filter (or a homemade box fan air filter) in the room. If you must go outside, limit your time outdoors, and try not to overexert yourself. Wear a particulate respirator or a mask rated N95 or P100 (or one with “NIOSH” on it). If air-quality levels remain high, consider getting out of town until levels have fallen back to normal.