Pilot program will pay for home retrofits in fire-prone areas
SAN DIEGO — Fearing wildfire, Jack Dillender has been doing everything within his budget to harden his three-bedroom house, nestled between the windswept, boulder-strewn hillsides of Dulzura. The rural hamlet, within 10 miles of the Mexico border, is among several nearby communities along Highway 94 routinely blasted by flames and dangerously intrusive embers.
The 42-year-old, who lives with his fiancee and her two children, said he’s been slowly installing doublepaned windows, as well as relentlessly chopping back vegetation on the 47-acre property.
The process has proved tremendously expensive and time consuming. However, he said, he’s better off than many of his neighbors.
“A lot of the people are lower income; the houses are older and the properties are large,” said Dillender, who works as a technician servicing fire alarms and sprinkler systems in office buildings.
Now, help could be on the way. California recently launched a $100-million pilot program in collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for home retrofits in areas of high fire risk.
San Diego County was chosen by state officials to spearhead the new initiative — doling out up to $40,000 per home to 500 backcountry residences from Dulzura to Campo. Firefighting officials have just started taking applications for the threeyear endeavor, which aims to tackle everything from installing ember-resistant screens on vents to replacing windows, siding and roofs.
County Fire Protection District Deputy Chief Dave Nissen, who has worked in the region’s rural eastern communities for 30 years, said he hopes folks will take advantage of the free upgrades.
“We’re not here to push this down anybody’s throat, but at the same time, we think it’s a high-value program,” he said.
The financial-assistance program was mandated under Assembly Bill 38 in 2019, in the wake of the Camp fire, which laid waste to the Northern California town of Paradise a year earlier.
The blaze, which jumped from home to home, leaving surrounding trees intact, showcased a trend long familiar to those living in Southern California. Suburban subdivisions and even entire towns that abut wildland areas can catch fire in ember storms that travel far ahead of a flame front.
In short, homes — not trees and brush — become the fuel, especially those built before California rolled
out a series of fire-resistant building codes starting in the 1990s.
“Houses are accelerants, but if you do the work — defensible space, building codes — you can minimize the acceleration that a subdivision can generate when a wildfire comes screaming over the ridgeline,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College who has written extensively about wildfires.
Wildfire prevention in California has largely focused on using heavy equipment to thin densely packed, fire-starved forests, such as in the Sierra Nevada. Hundreds of millions of dollars are slated for such work under spending approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom as well as the $1-trillion federal infrastructure bill.
However, in recent years, a growing chorus of researchers and environmental advocates have pointed out that much of the state’s structure loss from uncontrolled conflagrations happens not in heavily forested areas, but in communities surrounded by brush and grasslands.
A recent study from UC San Diego found that homes constructed after the state’s wildfire building codes went into effect are significantly less likely to be destroyed in a large blaze. By comparison, states without such requirements, such as Colorado and Oregon, have seen rates of destruction remain relatively unchanged.
“I am surprised at how clear it is in the data,” said Judson Boomhower, coauthor of the report and environmental economist at
Dillender moved to Dulzura about seven years ago, purchasing an older home, which destroyed 548 structures and killed eight people.
The San Diego native believes strongly in the value of upgrading his home. He said nearby wildfires regularly pepper the community with dangerous ash and embers.
“We’ve been doing the windows one at a time as we can afford it, and there’s like 20 in the house,” he said. “It’s rough.”
That’s why he volunteered to be California’s first participant in the new pilot program.
“It’s really going to help the people,” said Dillender. “A lot of these people inherited these houses and don’t have the resources to take care of them.”
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection chose the communities of Dulzura, Potrero and Campo based largely on their concentration of lowincome residents living in older, fire-prone homes. The state is also starting to roll out the pilot in Shasta County. Residents with higher incomes can still qualify for the retrofits as long as they pay for a percentage of the work.
Cal Fire has started taking applications online at wildfiremititgation.caloes. ca.gov.
“Some people are on board with free money,” said Cal Fire Assistant Deputy Director Daniel Berlant. “Others don’t want the government’s help. That’s going to be a challenge we’re working to overcome.”
One of those skeptical residents is Susan Gallegos, 65, who moved to Dulzura in the mid-1990s. The Harris fire wiped out three of her neighbors’ homes, but her 500-square-foot ranch house was spared.
“I don’t have the money for it,” she said of upgrading her home.
Still, Gallegos said she’s concerned the program could raise her property taxes or trigger other codecompliance issues.
Firefighting officials have said the process will not require the county to reassess properties. However, it’s possible that awarded funds could be taxed as income, an issue under discussion in the state Legislature.
Toni Luecht, 74, of Dulzura, said she’ll likely participate in the retrofit program. She and her husband lost a home in the Harris fire.
“We have the defensible space that’s required, but the vents in the attic are not good,” Luecht said. “It’s scary because we’ve been through this before.”