{"id":93267,"date":"2025-12-13T12:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T12:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/93267\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T12:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T12:29:09","slug":"study-finds-clearing-vegetation-prevented-home-damage-in-la-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/93267\/","title":{"rendered":"Study finds clearing vegetation prevented home damage in LA fires"},"content":{"rendered":"

As California again delays controversial rules requiring homeowners in fire-prone areas to maintain a 5-foot \u201cember-resistant\u201d zone<\/a> around their houses, a new report finds that properties that were already close to that standard were much less likely to be destroyed in the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January.<\/p>\n

With ashes still smoldering, researchers with the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, an industry-backed group, surveyed 252 homes<\/a> that had been in the path of the blazes in Altadena and Pacific Palisades.<\/p>\n

The group determined that of homes with more than half of their 5-foot zone covered in vegetation or other combustible material, 27% were completely destroyed. That share fell to 9% for homes with flammable material covering less than a quarter of the zone.<\/p>\n

Roy Wright, chief executive of the institute, said the findings reveal that \u201cthere are ways that we can narrow the pathways of destruction\u201d during climate-driven megafires and \u201cwe should have faith and trust in those strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ThisBut as the state works to craft the new fire safety rules ordered earlier this year by Gov. Gavin Newsom, homeowners have voiced concerns about the costs of removing plants, trees, wood fencing and other flammable materials, as well as the prospect of replacing landscaping with gravel or dirt. Some consumer advocates also contend the rules could be used by insurance companies, who\u2019ve backed the regulation, to end homeowners\u2019 coverage.<\/p>\n

In response to disagreements over how strictly to enforce the \u201czone zero<\/a>\u201d requirements, the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection said it would wait until March 2026 to continue working on the regulations<\/a>, blowing past a Dec. 31 deadline to finalize the rules set by Newsom\u2019s order. A 2020 law originally mandated a January 2023 deadline to complete the regulations.<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg News, the latest delay means it could be mid-2029 or later before any mandate takes effect for the roughly 2 million homes in high-risk fire areas<\/a>, including parts of every Bay Area county<\/a> except San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia is committed to getting Zone Zero right, not just getting it done, through rules that reflect what LA fire survivors have told us while balancing resilience to the next fire, the realities of the insurance market and what homeowners can reasonably afford,\u201d Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles County killed 31 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures, many of them homes, making the blazes among the most destructive wildfires in California history.<\/p>\n

At the start of next year, Berkeley will enact\u00a0similar 5-foot rules<\/a> for around 1,000 homes in the Berkeley Hills. In 1991, a catastrophic firestorm killed 25 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes in the Berkeley and Oakland hills. <\/p>\n

While some homeowners supported the ordinance, others worried about costs and questioned whether the requirements were necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit draconian to expect people to rip out existing vegetation that does not pose a fire hazard,\u201d said resident Gina Rieger at the city council meeting in April. \u201cYou could have somebody with a succulent garden that they\u2019ve tended for years and years and years.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a broad consensus among researchers, however, that maintaining \u201cdefensible space\u201d around a home is an effective way to prevent embers from sparking a structure during a wildfire, said Michael Gollner, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley who studies wildfire mitigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the cheapest and easiest things that you can do that has any immediate and measurable impact,\u201d Gollner said.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging the inherent limitations of the latest insurance institute report \u2014 including that it assessed only burn areas where at least some homes survived \u2014 he described it as an \u201cexcellent additional source of information\u201d to other recent studies.<\/p>\n

One study by Gollener of more than 47,000 homes in five major California wildfires (excluding the recent Los Angeles fires) found that clearing vegetation within 5 feet, coupled with \u201chome hardening\u201d measures such as installing non-flammable siding and fine-mesh over vents, doubled a home\u2019s expected survival rate<\/a> from 20% to 40%.<\/p>\n

In addition to home hardening, the insurance institute found that the spacing between homes was another critical factor, since a structure is more likely to catch fire if it\u2019s close to another burning structure. Even for homes with fire-resistant features, the chance of evading damage was less than 50% when the nearest structure was within 10 feet. Each additional 10 feet of separation increased the likelihood of no damage by 7-13%, up to 30 feet.<\/p>\n

Gollener noted since it\u2019s not feasible to increase home spacing in existing neighborhoods, it\u2019s crucial that all homeowners in fire-risk areas take steps to protect their properties from flames.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not just making a personal decision, you\u2019re making it for your community,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve learned that the whole community making a change is what really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As California again delays controversial rules requiring homeowners in fire-prone areas to maintain a 5-foot \u201cember-resistant\u201d zone around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,1011,1336,3002,181,100,385,535],"class_list":{"0":"post-93267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-housing","12":"tag-housing-crisis","13":"tag-insurance","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-regional","17":"tag-wildfires"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}