Here’s How A Bit Of Exterior Prep Can Save Your Home From Burning Down

Orange County firefighters walked between two demonstration homes Monday with red drip torches, dropping globules of fuel on the mulch surrounding them.

Immediately, the wood chips started to smolder, until a bit of wind was applied by nearby fans, and then the fire took off. Much like on any random fall night with the Santa Anas blowing, things escalated fast.

Within 20 minutes or so, one of the homes had burned down while the other stayed nearly pristine.

The only difference between the two was a bit of prep work, particularly around the 5-foot perimeter of the home.

The demonstration was put on by the Orange County Fire Authority, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety and the California Department of Insurance, to emphasize that a bit of prep can both save a house and potentially help residents save money on their insurance premiums.

What saved the one home?

The home on the left was like any other that you’d find in suburbia: a structure clad in wood, with uncovered eaves. Mulch, plants and a wood fence pressed right up against it.

After the fire was set, the mulch carried flames to the plants, which scorched the siding and caused the paint to bubble. The fence then caught on fire, turning into a blowtorch of sorts, blasting the eaves with flames. Once the roof went, it was game over and the entire structure came down.

Contrast that with the home on the right.

It was covered in fire proof siding and had its eaves covered, which helps keep them from catching on fire. A noncombustible metal fence was attached, and most importantly, it had a barrier of stones and decomposed granite instead of mulch. When the flames started burning through the small band of wood chips about five feet away, they were too far away to catch the primary structure on fire.

“You can reduce the possibility that your home is going to ignite, in half, by doing these types of measures we’re representing here today,” said Anne Cope, chief engineer with IBHS, which tests these sorts of things, including at their facility in South Carolina.

How to prepare your home

If your home catches on fire, odds are good that it’ll burn down. And considering that climate change and poor landscape management practices have raised the risk of destructive wildfires, it’s always worth considering taking steps to harden your home.

The Safer from Wildfires program developed by the California Department of Insurance, along with IBHS and Cal Fire, lays out some of the things you can do.

You’ll notice that a lot of them are oriented around keeping embers from getting inside your home, as embers are one of the primary sources of ignition during wildfires. With strong winds, they can fly more than a mile ahead of a fire front.

Some of the recommendations include:

• Creating a five foot ember resistant zone around your home.
• Making sure that the bottom six inches of your exterior walls are non-combustible.
• Installing a class-a fire rated roof.
• Enclosing your eaves and installing ember resistant vents, which help keep embers from creeping inside your crawlspace and setting your house on fire from the inside.

Cal Fire also has a variety of tips that extend far beyond your home’s five foot perimeter, which is also important to consider.

Prep can help lower your insurance rates

Last year, the department of insurance mandated that insurance companies give discounts to customers when certain preparation expectations are met. And if you follow the ten steps laid out in the Safer from Wildfires program, you could see anywhere from a 10 to 30 percent reduction in insurance costs, according to California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.

His office is still working to iron out the details with the insurance companies, but they expect the discount programs to be in place by next year.

“The way we keep insurance companies writing in these communities is by bringing down the risk. You make these changes, you get the discounts from your insurance company to help you do that. That’s a win-win,” said Lara at the event today.

When asked how homeowners should be responding to the messy state of California’s insurance market, he recommended hanging on to what you’ve got for now, if possible.

“If you have a homeowners policy, stick with it, don’t make any changes. It’s time to hunker down until we can really continue to make these investments in mitigation that the legislature is putting into place,” said Lara.

If you’re having issues with your existing insurance or are struggling to find insurance, you can call the California Department of Insurance helpline at 1-800-927-4357.

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