SACRAMENTO >> As the fire season has arrived, Mike McGuire (D-2nd) California Senate President Pro Tempore, hosted a Town Hall podcast in tandem with Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler May 8 to get residents prepared.
“We continue to make our communities more fire safe and we continue to invest like never before,” McGuire said. At the town hall, they received dozens of questions about solving the fire insurance crisis, and what they discovered, ever since the mega fires broke out, 2015 in Lake County, they’ve seen the crisis spread across the state with significant non-renewals (insurance policies).
“Simply raising home-owners’ insurance rates 20 to 40%, is not going to make a community or home more fire safe,” he said. He went on the state needs to get 85% of policy holders off FAIR Play Last Resort model and get them back on traditional policies. “When a majority of policy holders adopt Home Hardening in a neighborhood, we need companies to write policies again. We need a path to renewal insurance policies.”
Cal Fire’s, Chief Joe Tyler noted their motto is, we meet our mission through partnerships, coming together to make California resilient. He then went on to answer emailed questions sent to McGuire’s office, particularly about defensible space and the meaning of the Zone Zero. “That is, zero up to five feet clearance near the structure,” he said. “Defensible Space is multiple zones moving out from the structure to the property line.” It also takes into account home hardening including fire resistant siding and roof materials, as well as making sure embers on gutters and roofs are frequently removed. “We ask that a Zone up to 30 feet is cleared to one to two inches of grass and ornamental shrubs be kept manicured,” he said.
McGuire pointed out there are a hundred homes in the north of Lake County being hardened yet cannot get home-owners insurance policies. But he explained there is no statute to require insurance companies to issue policies. “The Legislature tried twice but it gets incredibly political,” he said. “They come in with lots of money to fight it but we’re going to bring it back.”
Cal Fire Chief Tyler concurred. “It’s about each of us helping each other to protect our homes, property and the environment,” he said. He went on that in Kelseyville/Riviera, there is a pilot program to have homes undergo home hardening and they will examine the data when it is available. “The important thing is you can’t harden one home but must do an entire community. Hardened homes first should closely approach the fire front so homes internal, will be less susceptible to (burning) embers internal pass,” he said. McGuire added that fire studies show that 99% of fires are stopped when power lines are buried underground. “We need to look at more of that; it saves rate payers money based on traditional vegetation management programs. We’re looking at PG&E accountability with Public Safety Power Shutoff when trees crash into power lines,” he said. And PG&E are hardening their lines covering them in a hard plastic shell. It is an improvement yes, but is it fast enough, no.”
Tyler then added, homeowners must always be able to close off attics with small wire mesh screens to prevent the embers from entering and threatening roofs. A questioner asked McGuire to address what can unincorporated towns do to access more regular vegetation management. McGuire urged more remote residents to appeal to volunteer fire companies for help, local fire districts, the county government and resource conservation districts for grants to harden homes. “Encourage residents to seek tax incentives, to persuade your neighbors to harden their homes,” McGuire said.
Tyler stressed Cal Fire is resorting to doing all of the above; defensible space, home hardening yet also hand and mechanical thinning. And he added that even prescribed fire is a useful tool. “But it has to be within certain wind conditions, certain topography to ensure the fire is going to do exactly what we intended it to do,” he said. “There’s 800 Fire Wise Communities across the state. It’s a subset of the community to make their area more resilient. It opens opportunities for resources.”
