Is your home as safe as it could be in a wildfire?
No house is fireproof, but preventive measures can help provide protection
LOS GATOS >> If flames ignite the Santa Cruz Mountains, lifelong resident Scott Green knows that firefighters may struggle to save everything that needs saving. So his rural home protects itself. By taking the proper steps — almost all year long, and far before a wildfire arrives — Green is making his 40-acre parcel more fire-resistant.
Atop his old barn, flammable wood shingles are being replaced by asphalt composition roofing. There’s mesh over the vents under his tidy house to block embers. Nearby Douglas fir trees are tall and clean, their lower branches lopped off. He’s chipped and hauled away tinder-dry brush from the fields surrounding his structures. Golden grass is short and stubby; just a few distant meadows still await mowing.
His ponds are home to fish, frogs and ducks. But they’re also useful for fire-
fighting, offering water to helicopters. He’s planning to install a pump that could fill an engine in 10 minutes.
Perched above Los Gatos, his home is serene and bucolic — until the sudden roar of PG&E chain saws, clearing madrone branches away from high-voltage transmission lines that traverse a corner of his forest.
“It’s almost an all-year process,” said Green, a real estate agent with Alain Pinel Realtors who has 25 years of firefighting experience, currently serving as a Cal Fire captain. “You can’t just do it real quick, on a weekend before fire season starts.”
So far, 2,173 structures have been lost to wildfire in California this summer, according to Cal Fire, ranging from upscale homes near Redding and historic 1920sera cabins near Sonora Pass. This doesn’t include homes within U.S. Forest Service lands. And fire season doesn’t peak until October.
This year’s toll pushes the statewide total of destroyed structures to 34,857 over the past three decades. Most are built in the so-called “wildland-urban interface,” where neighborhoods mix with nature.
“I’ve seen homes that have burnt, homes that had very minimal or no defensible space,” said Green, 50. “It’s a little frustrating and sometimes disheartening because firefighters always want to save everyone and save the home. But if homeowners have not taken those steps, sometimes it’s very, very difficult to do.”
From news reports, it often seems that the way houses burn, or don’t, is random.
But it’s not. No home is fireproof; the fire tornado that struck Redding claimed fire-resistant homes surrounded by defensible space. But there are specific, science-based steps to make structures less vulnerable.
“When you start to understand why homes burn, often through embers igniting fuel in home attics or adjacent to homes, then it is easier to understand these patterns,” said Kate Wilkin, a fire specialist for UC Cooperative Extension.
“Making your home fire-resistant with defensible space takes work and money, but it is worth it to reduce the chance that you will lose your home in a wildfire,” she said.
Researchers call it a “coupled approach” to survival.
That means removing excess vegetation around a home to keep flames from reaching it, and also reducing the radiant heat right next to the house. State and local laws require homeowners in high fire zones to maintain defensible space, but it is rare that citations are issued for those who do not comply.
It also means the careful selection and installation of construction materials that reduce the risk of flying embers, which can get into attic or foundation vents, land on combustible deck furniture, or accumulate against door
jambs. These protections aren’t required except during new construction, and even then, building codes aren’t sufficient.
Green learned early. Born in the Santa Cruz Mountains, he was only 17 when a bolt of lightning struck trees near Lexington Reservoir in 1985, igniting a fire that roared up the ridge, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Dubbed the Lexington fire, it was driven by erratic 30 to 40 mph winds.
Flames came within 100 yards of the family home, where he now lives. But the property had been well cleared, and he helped his father set up water pumps at the pond. Bulldozers were ready. He recalls seeing a huge line of fire engines parked all along Summit Road, ready to stop the fire from leaping into Santa Cruz County.
“It was a hunker-down situation,” he recalls. But
rather than being fearful, “It was exciting. We didn’t feel in danger. We were very prepared.”
Since then, he’s witnessed more large and local infernos — the 2008 Summit fire, the 2009 and 2016 Loma fires and the 2017 Bear fire, in addition to many smaller blazes. The greatest destruction comes, he said, in places with rough and remote topography, south-facing exposure, no “fuel breaks” and very dense vegetation
that has not been cleared for decades.
Well-prepared homes give fire crews a fighting chance, he said.
There’s comfort in knowing you have done pretty much all you can to make your home safe for firefighters to defend it, said Green.
“That’s why it’s really important,” he said, “that people take the necessary steps.”