The names are ominously familiar: Camp. CZU Lightning. Caldor. And more recently, Palisades. Between 2018 and 2023, more than 41,000 structures in California were destroyed and 152 lives were lost in wildfires. What can you do to improve your chances?
Kate Wilkin is an assistant professor of fire ecology at San Jose State University. This summer, she and her colleagues published a study of 176 homes in the Lake Tahoe area and Santa Cruz Mountains. After detailed inspections, they found only 2% met or came close to meeting state standards for reducing fire risk.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.
Q: What did you find?
A: We have a long way to go to adapt to the wildfire crisis. As a whole, we are not mitigating well.
Q: It sounds like people aren’t really doing a very good job preparing their homes.
A: That is a fair summation.
Q: Where are homeowners doing well and where are they falling short?
A: Think about your own home. How often do you blow the leaves off your roof? Or sweep the debris off your front porch? Those are important because if an ember lands on them, they can catch fire. But we aren’t doing that kind of maintenance on a regular basis. Anywhere we have debris accumulating on roofs, porches, decks, patio furniture — you might see piles of leaf debris on the corners of your deck — those are areas where embers are going to catch.
Q: Why do you think so many folks are struggling to keep up? Do they not realize the risk?
A: People are busy. They may not be exactly sure what they need to do for their homes.
Q: What were some good things that you saw people most commonly doing?
A: People were really great about removing branches within 10 feet of their chimney. They were good at having address signs that were 4 inches tall so firefighters and ambulances can find their homes. They were good at having intact metal screens on the windows, which reduces embers going into homes.
Their roofs were in fairly good condition. About 80% didn’t need maintenance, which means your roof will not allow embers in and also it can sustain higher temperatures.
Q: What are things very few people were doing?
A: Removing debris off roofs, gutters and decks was hard for nearly everybody. And there were too many places where woodpiles or propane tanks didn’t have 10 feet of bare soil around them.
Too many people also had trees that were too close to their homes or weren’t trimmed back enough. Or shouldn’t even be there. You don’t want trees within 5 or 10 feet of your house.
Q: What things are most important to do to reduce wildfire risk?
A: To me the top three are having a fire-rated roof that is well maintained, with all of the vents that come into your attic and house having one eighth-inch fine mesh.
And third, everything 5 feet from your house needs to be something that’s not going to catch fire. We saw lots of wood piles, paint cans, and bags of mulch in that zone during our study. All of those things are dangerous.
Landscaping is also important. How can we redesign it so it is beautiful but also reduces the chance that we lose our homes?
Q: Are you saying not to have any plants or vegetation in that 5-foot zone? No bushes, no flowers, nothing?
A: There’s a lively discussion on that. When I lived in Grass Valley, I chose to have pavers and gravel. I created interesting berms beyond the house to hide the gravel and pavers so that the house still looked beautiful from the street. It made maintenance on the house a lot easier because we could easily walk around it.
The most strict standards from the Insurance Institute for Business and Health Safety say no vegetation within 5 feet. That’s an industry advocacy group. We have another standard that our state Board of Forestry is working out that is more lenient. They are saying you can have some potted plants, a single tree.
Q: What does the law currently require?
A: When you build a house or renovate it you are required to meet state building codes. For vegetation you are required to clear defensible space and reduce fuel up to 100 feet from your home if you live in an area with fire hazards. You are required to have a lean, clean and green zone within 30 feet of your house and reduce fuels up to 100 feet away.
Q: In a big fire like the Los Angeles fires in January, do these things really make much of a difference?
A: Yes. If you look at the 2018 Camp Fire, some of my colleagues found that if you had a house built more recently than 2008 it was more likely to survive the fires. That’s where we had new building codes to prevent embers from coming into your house, like through the vents, and higher fire-rated roofs. We know that those features increase the chance of survival even in the worst firestorms.
How much does the 0-5 foot zone influence things? We don’t have great observations from fires because very few people have done it well. But we know from lab experiments that it does reduce temperatures and flame lengths near the house.
Q: Insurance companies have been canceling policies in lots of parts of California. Will doing these things help increase the chances of keeping your insurance?
A: What I’m hearing is that it can help.
Q: Some people may say, ‘I don’t live in the forest. I don’t need to do these things.’ Your thoughts?
A: Most structure losses happen in areas of grasses and shrubs, not trees. If you live within half a mile of a natural area that has grasses, shrubs or trees you likely need to be thinking about these things.
Q: The Newsom administration is considering new rules to require people living in very high fire hazard areas to clear all plants and vegetation 5 feet from their homes. Your thoughts?
A: It’s a good idea. You don’t want your house getting a lot of heat or flame contact. You don’t want campfires next to your house. It’s hard to remove plants near your house. It can be a long process. But as somebody whose studies fire and understands how fire moves through the landscape, I think it’s worth it.
Q: What’s the big takeaway message?
A: We’re all in this together. We need to work on reducing fuels around our houses and home hardening. It’s going to be a long-term project. But if every year we can all continue to improve, it will be a worthwhile endeavor and we are all going to come out better.
** For more tips on how to prepare your home, go to readyforwildfire.org.
____________________________________________________________________
Kate Wilkin
Age: 43
Position: Assistant professor of fire ecology and management, San Jose State University
Hometown: Abingdon, Va.
Residence: Santa Clara, Calif.
Education: B.S., Biology and Environmental Science, William & Mary (2004); M.S., Biology, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (2009); Ph.D., Fire Ecology, UC Berkeley (2016)
____________________________________________________________________
Five facts about Kate Wilkin
– Has helped complete controlled burns on nearly 10,000 acres across the U.S.
– Spent more than a year backpacking in Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks for science
– Accidentally kicked an alligator in the head once when while hiking in Florida swamps
– Likes to cook to funk music
– Took private pilot’s lessons in elementary school