The idea is simple: By keeping the first 5 feet around a home clear of flammable vegetation, wooden fencing and debris, homeowners can reduce the risk of embers igniting their property β and, with that, the chances of an urban conflagration in which flames spread from structure to structure.
The California Legislature in passed a bill requiring property owners in fire-prone areas to maintain so-called ember-resistant zones around their homes. The legislation tasked the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection with writing up rules governing exactly what this should look like by Jan.
State Sen. Ben Allen D-Santa Monica , who represents fire-ravaged Malibu and Pacific Palisades, is unhappy with the delay and is examining how the Legislature might prod the agency to pick up the pace, saying it's important for the standards to be in place as homeowners rebuild.
Read more: Lessons from the burn zone: Why some homes survived the L. Henry Stern D-Calabasas also is calling on the board to move more quickly. In both the Palisades and Eaton fires, brush burning amid fierce Santa Ana winds spewed embers that ignited homes. The goal of an ember-resistant zone β also known as zone zero β is to sever connections between properties to reduce the risk of that kind of spread, multiple experts said.
Such precautions also lessen the chance of a home igniting by depriving embers of material to burn against a structure, they said. The fires took place during such extreme weather that even if one homeowner took all the proper precautions, winds could have helped embers ignite a neighboring structure and then spread, said Ron Durbin, chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department's forestry division.
