bring resources and also sponsored some legislation for us this last year which
I think we'll hear about probably. Senator Grayson was elected to the
state Senate in 2024 but did so after spending eight years in the Assembly and
chairs the East Bay Regional Wildfire Task Force which is something that arose
out of a legislative visit that we had with you last year. And Senator Grayson
was a licensed general building contractor and small business owner and
previously served on the Concord City Council and was Concord's mayor. Thank you
Senator for joining us. And last but certainly not least we have with us
Chief, Steve Hawks, who is currently a senior director for wildlife with IBHS, and IBHS
is the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety.
For those of you who don't know what IBHS is, IBHS is sort of the fire science division
of the insurance industry.
Chief Hawks leads wildfire policy and code enforcement and post-fire analysis research
at IBHS and supports its Wildfire Prepared Home Program.
He's joined IBHS in 2023 after a career with Cal Fire at the Office of the State Fire
Marshall and so while he's a retired chief, he is still a chief hawks to us.
Thank you chief.
And so I think we want to begin, you know, this film asks a lot about how this happened,
right?
And what can be done to ensure this tragedy never happens again.
So I'll ask each of you to begin by sort of answering that question from your own perspective.
Chief Isaacs.
Good evening, everybody.
Thank you for being here this evening.
As I watched the movie, one thing, or several things, you know, came to mind.
One is we have to prepare our properties to receive wildfire so we need the home hardening,
we need the non-combustible roof, we need the amber resistant vent mesh, we need the
zone zero but more than that we need the partnership with you the homeowners to help us prepare
our communities to receive wildfire and prepare our neighborhoods to receive wildfire.
That's the biggest thing that I got.
Thank you, assembly member.
Well I just want to say how happy it makes me to see all of you here.
As an Arinda resident we are all in this together and seeing all of you here makes me so happy.
So I just want to say first of all, my first reaction to the film was who knew Chief Winniker
was going to become a movie star when he left Arinda.
I was watching it and I was like wait here's Chief Winniker.
But if he was going to become a movie star this is the movie he would star in.
We know that.
So I think my biggest takeaway was, it wasn't anything that Chief Winoger hadn't told me
frankly and Chief Isaacs over time, but that we really need to take an all of the above
approach.
And we've done a lot here in Arinda, whether it's the shaded fuel breaks to keep the fire
from coming towards our community, the evacuation planning that the city has done, you know,
we have our evacuation drills in neighborhoods in this community, we are getting ready.
But at the same time, I think the most important takeaway from the film was, you can't stop
a fire like the one that was coming at the Palisades.
And although we have had fires start in Briones over my time in the legislature, I don't even
know how many times.
And huge credit to our firefighters and their preparedness were, because you didn't even
hear about those fires, because they're putting them out.
And that is a best case scenario.
But with winds like we saw, there's times when that's just not possible for our firefighters,
and it's gonna come on our communities.
And the question is, how do we be as prepared as possible?
Both as it relates to saving the lives
of our community members, so in those evacuation plans
that they have worked so hard to put into place
and get us ready for, but also in preparing our homes,
so our homes can withstand this.
And that we can each do that,
but we're better off if we all do it.
And so how do we get our communities together
to really take these steps together?
And I will tell you, I've done some of this work
in partnership with my neighbors,
and you can also save money that way
when you bring out one tree worker
and you all do it together,
it is much cheaper than each of you
hiring a tree worker separately.
And so we have done some of that work in my neighborhood
using the chipper program that is offered
and been successful in starting to mitigate,
but it is an annual work in progress
and we are all really busy people.
So how do we stay in this together to get houses
that will withstand a fire if it happens here?
Thank you, Senator Grayson.
And I'm happy because the assembly member's happy.
And she's an awesome partner, an incredible partner to work with and I too am overwhelmed
at the presence of each and every one of you that are here tonight and California should
take notice that we have an issue on our hands.
I've been taught even at the youngest age that I can remember that was like 200 years
ago as I feel that pressure or age. But I can remember back even to my youngest age
being taught an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. And we have the power
within our means right now to begin to exercise that ounce of prevention because it's a whole
lot better to prevent than it is to recover. And in this particular case, as we saw, you
can have all the resources in the world, and just like we're facing climate change right
now and rising seas, that you're not going to stop the ocean. It's going to go where
it wants to go. And what we have to do when nature does what it does, we have to be the
best prepared that we can possibly be. And the only way to accomplish that is for every
single person to be all in and onboard, working hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, exercising
every ounce of prevention that we can to make sure that when the time comes, it's not an
if, but when the time comes, our measures of prevention prove to be successful against
any force that would take us to disaster mode. And what I mean by that is that we did all
that we could to prepare and be ready, and I can promise you this one thing, if
we all do it together, we come out on the other side winning the battle. Chief
Hox. So when I saw the, this is about the third time I've seen this video, so we
were able to deploy alongside CAL FIRE's damage inspection teams and do a really
in-depth post-fire analysis along with one of our other research partners
underwriters' laboratory and so we saw a lot of things during both our time in Pacific
Palisades as well as Altadena that we've seen on many other large fires that we've
done post fire deployments on.
But the good news is, is that we know a lot about what needs to be done, particularly
at the parcel level.
to address the vulnerabilities with the home itself, the roof, vents, siding, windows,
etc., all the way to the ground, and then going out from the walls of the house and
looking at the area that surrounds it, and how can we reduce the exposure of the things
that surround the house that can burn and lead to the ignition of the home, and creating
good defensible space, in particular that first five feet.
I've seen so many homes that have had damage and undoubtedly many were destroyed because
of combustible items in that first five feet that surrounds the house.
So, when we take collective action and address the vulnerabilities of the home and the surrounding
area and do it at scale across entire communities, then we're going to turn the tide and we're
going to make homes more survivable and communities more survivable.
You don't have to have a fire start under those conditions, enter into community and
become that large destructive fire.
So going back to what Jack Cohen said in the video, it's about the vulnerabilities with
the structure.
Thank you.
One question we get asked a lot about, and we've got a lot of Firewise community members
here, and I know, thank you, thank you all for being here, and thank you for the work
you do.
So cheers for that.
Yes, thank you.
My Firewise Leader's here.
I don't see him.
And what a source of frustration has been zone zero.
What are the regulations?
What are they going to be?
First, we were told it would be nothing within five feet,
and now it's evolved.
And so we want to talk a little bit about zone zero.
So in terms of the status, I know
I've heard a lot of questions about this.
I'm going to try to give a little update on that.
And then Chief Isaacs is going to chime in.
The California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, a statewide agency,
approved the final draft of regulations in August of this year.
And they are now pending final review with the Office of Administrative Law,
and then they get filed.
We don't yet have a date for that set, I believe, but we think it will be soon.
So, I am told because I was able to meet someone
from that agency and I said, is this really it?
Are these really the final regulations?
And he said, yes.
So, we're hoping they really will be and we'll know soon.
So, if you want to chime in, Chief Hox,
and tell us, what do Zones Air Regulations require?
So, first off, the Office of Administrative Law,
once the Board of Forestry submitted
draft regulatory package to OAL, OAL came back to the Board of Forestry with some things
that they wanted changed.
So the board pulled the regulation back.
They're addressing those comments that the Office of Administrative Law made and their
intent is at the full board meeting next Thursday is to vote to move the draft regulation back
into the formal process at OAL.
They have emergency authority, so I think within seven days it is from the OAL receiving,
there's a five-day public comment period in there, but within seven days then if everything
goes according to the plan, then it would become effective at some point right after
that.
So, zone zero addresses the first five feet out from the walls of the house and surrounding
other attachments like decks, pergolas, stairs, and so forth.
And the basic concept of the science behind it is we heard on the video embers, embers, embers.
So many times embers were mentioned in the video and they're produced by the thousands
and they travel in the wind and the wind on the ground level within the fire
in the community is very shifty, moving back and forth blowing the embers wherever the wind blows.
And when we do research at our research center,
we see that those embers flow up against the side
of the house, and then there's a vortex that's created,
and the vortex hits the side of the house
and pushes back away from the house.
Those embers flow up against the side of it.
Some of them fall to the ground
and travel right up against the base of the house.
Some of them push out further.
In our laboratory setting,
we have a smooth concrete surface,
so it's easy for them to slide out
from the walls of the house.
In reality on the ground, those surfaces aren't smooth.
So there's lots of things we have in that first five feet.
Some of them are combustible,
some of them are non-combustible.
Whatever the object is,
that ember can be stopped and trapped
and accumulate with other embers.
And when embers accumulate,
then they can build up enough heat.
And when that object that they're accumulated against
is combustible, they can ignite that combustible object.
And when you have fire within five feet of your house,
only bad things are gonna happen because of that.
There's more opportunity when you have fire
in five feet in front of the house
than there is when fire is further away.
So there's more opportunity for the fire
to take advantage of that,
leading to the ignition of the house.
And so that's the kind of the science
or the reasoning behind that first five feet is so critical.
We'll see what comes of the Board of Forestry Regulation.
And currently, it's not a non-combustible zone.
It is allowance for trees.
They have to be limbed up under certain requirements.
There's allowance for plants in the ground
or in non-combustible pots that are up to 18 inches in height
and separated by two feet from the outer edge of each
of the plants' outer circumference.
And then there's at least a foot could be further distance out
from the walls that is truly a non-combustible space,
but it could be further than that one foot
if the eve line extends beyond one foot out from the wall.
So if, say, the eve line goes out two feet,
then that non-combustible space is two feet.
And then around other more vulnerable components
like doors, windows, and vents,
there's another two-foot space requirement
from plants and things there,
and then five feet from around attachments
like decks, stairs, and burglars.
so real simple exactly um the good news is we do have once the regulations are final three years
for implementation right chief isaac's you want to talk a little bit about the the what what it
means in a rinda a question we also get is well so these are state regulations what do they mean
for us here. So my understanding of the regulations is as soon as they go into effect it will
affect all new construction in a very high fire hazard severity zone. I've had lots of
discussions with the MOFD board of directors and it's a topic we're going to take up in
probably January at our meeting. So please come to our January meeting let your voice
be heard. But the board of directors has to decide are we going to wait three years the
threats here today. Why are we waiting three years? Do we tell people what to do
in that three-year span that you have to do certain items each year? Do we apply
those regulations outside the very high fire hazard severity zone? We are a
community at risk. We have a threat to wildfire and when we had CAL FIRE come
train my inspectors for damage inspection, their numbers show the
majority of the structures lost their damage in a wildfire event happened in
in the higher moderate zone.
So that's something the MOFD Board of Directors,
we're gonna have to address is where do we apply these
and how do we apply them.
But the biggest thing that we have to do is educate you,
our neighbors, our partners in this,
as to what those regulations are and what they look like.
Thank you.
Did I just hear you right that we're better off
if we're in the very high fires verity zone?
No.
I was a little confused by that statement.
I was like, maybe I'm good.
OK, we'll talk about another subject, which
is, how do we implement all this?
So we've talked about, you saw in the film,
and we've talked a lot locally about defensible space,
about zone zero in particular, which
is the first five feet around your home,
and about home hardening, making sure we have those vents,
those embers. That's a lot of work. Right. And, you know, on one hand, if I'm a homeowner
here, and my house needs a new coat of paint, I'm not going to look to government and say,
hey, city of Orinda, state of California, come paint my house. Right. It's my responsibility
as a homeowner to do that. Or if I'm renting for my, the landlord to do it. On the other
hand, when it comes to implementing changes like zone zero, right, or home hardening,
we do hear a lot of residents saying who's going to pay for all this, right?
And so it is a partnership between residents, fire districts, and government, right, to
prevent fire and slow the spread.
We saw all of this is about slowing the spread.
So that brings, I think, some thoughtful, interesting questions, which is what is the
role of residence and what is the role of government, right?
And so, you know, in particular for those who can do the work, who should be paying
for it, and then also for those who can't for some reason or can't afford to, should
there be a role for government to step in?
And so I don't know who wants to take this first.
I was going to look to see if our state electives want to talk about it.
You know, I think it's a little bit of both.
So I think we each have a role to play and that's really critically important.
But I think the point you make is a really good one.
Often, if you look at the houses that are covered in junipers, it's older homes.
That's older landscaping.
And we may have residents there that have less means to just go and re-landscape and
take these out.
And it's not cheap.
Anyone, I had a tree die and I had to take out the tree because it was a fire hazard.
It was not cheap to remove that tree, as anybody here who has had to do that knows.
And so when we have people for whom that is not something that is possible for them within
their means, I actually do think it's really important that we provide grants for that.
And we do.
We have for quite some time now the state has provided wildfire mitigation grants through
Cal Fire and just a year ago we changed those to include communities seeking that grant
money to help with some of this home hardening so that the community, the fire district or
the city could apply for those grants and then have the ability to support community
members who can't otherwise pay.
Now those funds are not endless so if we all then said we all are going to do zone zero
and the city's grant is going to cover all of it, that probably wouldn't work.
But if we did it together and supported some residents and did some ourselves,
then it's really possible.
I also think we should look at programs like what Arinda has already done with the chipper program,
right?
So it is a lot easier for me to remove my plants and then leave them and have them chipped, right?
Getting rid of them is actually sometimes, depending on the plants, the hard part.
And so the city coming in and doing that piece of the work can save people a lot of money.
And so that is a step that was taken here in Arinda
to allow for communities and you have to sign up
in your neighborhood, there have to be enough houses
that are willing to do it for it to be worthwhile,
and then the chipper comes and takes care of it.
And so there are ways that we can provide grant money,
we can provide resources to help make this happen.
But we have to be partners in that.
And I do think the insurance crisis is causing people
to be a little more willing to do the work
because I don't know about you guys,
but my insurance went up 300%.
And so if I can get back onto an admitted plan
by doing this, in the long run the investment
into Wildfire Safe Home could save me money.
And so that does change the economics of it.
Thank you.
Senator?
And if I may, grants are great and something
that we should be looking toward and funding
from a state level, especially for communities
where we're looking at our constituents
and those that live in that community
that are struggling on the cost side of it,
or helping them with grants and providing resources.
But I think a role that government can also play
in partnership is looking at anywhere
where there is an obstacle,
or there is a challenge that is facing a homeowner
that is in a position where they're making
home modifications for the sake of hardening,
and yet they face cost like permitting,
and the fees that come with that permit.
I think any way that government can,
for the certain purpose of hardening a home,
look at ways where we can cut the cost
when it comes to pulling a permit,
when it comes to a contractor that's been hired coming in
to do work, to streamline whatever inspections,
and really make it possible that way
to help make it affordable.
But I also want to encourage the insurance companies,
and my conversations that I have been having with them
as well, and this comes from a person being in the contracting business for over 30 years
now, still with an active license, and yes, I would advocate for this, and that is having
insurance companies that are willing to come back into a community and start writing market
insurance policies again to partner with general contractors that are willing to come in and
do the work at a certain price point.
Rather than it being so arbitrary
that the same job can be exponentially higher
simply because you're in a zip code
of a high wildfire risk,
but doing the exact same job somewhere else
that's not considered a wildfire risk
and it's at a much lower rate.
And so I think it's not to be justified
simply because you're in a high wildfire risk area
that your price that you're paying,
the price point is exponentially higher.
So I think it would be who insurance companies
to partner with contractors that are willing to sign on
to a price point and say,
I'll be one of your preferred contractors to work
and do that work, right?
I was just gonna say that would be very welcome here
and you just heard that it is.
Get in it as contractors.
We do wanna do the work
and I'm gonna assembly member that we.
It's not that easy to figure out what to do yet, is it?
We're working on it.
I bet I'm not the only one here who is non-renewed.
Yep, yep, yep, right, yes.
Hi, welcome, I'm glad, not glad.
We're all part of the same club.
But yeah, so I was non-renewed by State Farm.
I'm on the fair plan and I learned
that there were insurers who were gonna cover people
who had the wildfire certification.
And we're paying so much to be on the fair plan right now
that my husband and I had a conversation
and we thought maybe it's worth spending the money
to get the certification.
Let's get a bid, right, that's logical.
So I call the insurance company that said they would write
and I said, hi, I wanted to get the information
about what it would take to certify my home.
And the woman says, what are you talking about?
And I said, well, I read that you are willing
to write insurance for anyone who has a wildfire safe home.
She said, well, do you have a wildfire safe home?
And I said, I don't know.
That's why I'm calling you.
I need you to tell me what a wildfire safe home is.
She said, okay.
So she takes my email.
She did actually write me back a week later.
I was the only person who'd ever called and asked this.
She wrote me back a week later
with a brochure of what I needed to do.
I am not a contractor, as you heard, I'm an attorney.
I could not understand this brochure.
It was as if it was written in a foreign language.
And we have an older mid-century home.
We've done a lot of work on it.
So it's sort of a mishmash of like new
and not new, and so I was like,
I don't know how I'm supposed to know what to do,
so we did actually bring a contractor out
who couldn't decipher this either,
and here I am, someone who is maybe willing to do the work,
we'll see, you know, I need the bid,
maybe willing to do the work, eager to find out,
and I probably know more than the average bear
about wildfire safety, and I cannot for the life of me
figure out what it would take to get this certification,
and so that is unacceptable.
If we are creating a system where we're saying to you,
we want you to be wildfire safe,
it's gonna save whole communities
and your insurance provider is gonna be protected
and so you're gonna be able to get insurance,
that's actually a really good thing.
We're using the market to motivate people
to change behavior, but you can't change your behavior
if you don't know what it is they want you to do.
And so I have now set out to actually try to figure this out.
The chief is committed to being my partner
in trying to figure out what the certification
actually means on the ground in real life and what my goal is at the end of
this is to be able to move some sort of piece of legislation that forces this to
change. It has to be user-friendly. It's not as if the standard is wrong. Maybe
the standard is right, I have no idea what the standard is, but we have to be
able to understand it, we have to be able to apply it, and we have to be able to get
houses that are certified and hopefully that means we can get back into the
insurance market. And so I think in that extent it is a partnership but government
can help with helping those who don't have the resources.
And also, for those who do have the resources,
either bringing about the culture change
so that they, like us, now want to do the work.
And then when they want to do the work,
keeping it clear, understandable,
and providing that education.
And here, before we leave what government can do for you,
Chief Isaacs, do you want to talk a little bit about what
we have available for our residents here?
Because I have to say, several years ago,
I'm thinking back to 2020, 2021.
Having the whole developed program
that we have here now in Arinda was a pipe dream.
And the fact that we're all here,
the fact that you're all here together,
and we have such a developed Firewise community
and a whole network of nonprofits, FISMO,
and I just want to give a shout out
to all the folks that are out here
doing the work every single day to keep our community safer as volunteers. We
really have come a long ways, right? And so, in Arundo we have a CHIPA program, we
have an incentive program that's administered by FISMO. Information
about all of that is on the back of your flyer, and MOFD also offers incentives.
Wait, can I just say something before you take over, too? It was a pipe dream, but it
didn't just happen on its own. I do think that we need to give huge credit to
to Councilmember Malconney, to the City Council, they really have focused on making sure that
we had the resources we need to become wildfire safe.
And so I just want to make sure we acknowledge their incredibly hard work in making us get
to where we are today.
MOFD also has a Chipper program.
We have a home hardening grant program where we give out the ember resistant vent mesh.
We give out gutter guards.
Our Chipper program you can contact us.
will come chip. It is a great program. It's our partnership with you. You do the
work. We're gonna chip. We're gonna haul it off at no cost to you. We have an
ambassador program. If you need to get questions answered, you're not sure what
to do. Call, sign up. We will have a volunteer come out. It's not one of my
inspectors that shows up. They won't cite you. It's very cool. They'll just tell you what to do.
This is neighbors helping neighbors, so it's not a inspection that gets a ticket
with it. This is how we partnership with you and we help you. We have great
programs through our Firewise neighborhoods, through FireSafe,
Moraga, Arinda. So there's a lot of resources out there and if you ever have
questions call me. I am here to help you and serve you as your fire chief so
don't hesitate to reach out and call me. Thank you. Okay now we're gonna we're
going to switch to the hot topic, which is we have heard a lot, and we heard about this
in the film, about residents being underinsured, delays in payment, higher premiums. Who here
is on the fair plan? Raise your hand. Okay. And I want you all to know that the
insurance commissioner believes we're not a distressed community because not enough
are on the fair plan. Did you see that? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I get really worked up about
year after 31 years at State Farm. I got a picture of that and sent it to the
Commissioner. So our community was heavily impacted. We have a lot of our a
lot of horrendous and very high fire severity zone. And many residents here
want to be reinsured by private insurers. I've heard a lot of frustration about
trying to comply with the requirements just as our assembly member faced. On the
The other hand, I've heard anecdotally that insurers are coming back to the East Bay and
California in general, which is good news, some of them.
Given all this, is it fair to tell homeowners that they stay on this preparedness path that
we saw in the film and that we're hearing here?
If you stay on this preparedness path, will the insurers come back to our higher risk
areas?
I guess I would ask each of you to sort of address this, but, you know, Chief Hawkes,
you can talk about sort of the industry research, and then, like, what are the challenges on
a state level?
And I know we have an important insurance election, insurance commissioner election
coming up.
So who wants to go first on this fun topic?
I just want to say that it makes me really angry when I'm told that insurance is coming
back because I don't know how many of you have every couple months I just call
random insurers to ask if they're writing in my neighborhood because why not right
what do I have to lose and they laugh at me every single time they're like what's
your zip code and I say well you don't write insurance there so like this whole
narrative that it's coming back is maybe true but it's not true here they laugh at
me and they continue to laugh me I just called a couple weeks ago so I just
think it's important to say that like they maybe are writing new plans
somewhere but we need our wildland urban interface which is what we are to be a
part of that conversation and to be brought back into it and this is what
has been so frustrating to me because the insurance commissioner is the reason
I made that comment about the fair plan was when they did the sustainable
insurance strategy which requires the insurance companies that they're gonna
raise rates and charge you for risk which frankly I think is fair they
should be paying based on my risk they have to agree to put 85% of their plans
into distressed areas. So right risky plans. Distressed areas are defined as
having 15% of the community on the fare plan. Arinda is the city in my district
and I represent my entire district as wild and urban interface. I go down the
24, down the 680 and have the Tri-valley. And Arinda has the highest concentration
of fare plan and we're at 11%. Because any wild and urban interface has
fare plan heavily concentrated on the WUI and not in the center. It's never
going to reach 15% because that center is never going to get on the fair plan.
And when I called the insurance commissioner out for this, they were like, oh yeah, maybe
that was an oversight.
And then they didn't want to fix it, because they just didn't want to go back and do the
work was kind of the sense I got.
And so, you know, we pushed really hard to get them to fix it, they refused to.
So I pushed legislation through with an official letter of opposition from the insurance commissioner
saying how dare I ask him to consider the WUE in the distressed areas definition, but
we did get it signed into law by Governor Newsom, even with his opposition, and so they
will have to reevaluate the definition of distressed areas to include the wildland urban
interface, which hopefully means people will no longer laugh at us when we call asking
for insurance.
Thank you.
Senator.
member and again the valiant work that she does to represent her district on
the state level so well done for that and this is not an easy issue and an
easy topic this is incredibly complex because our insurance companies that are
writing policies and yes they should be held accountable and right in distressed
areas but we're also dealing with a fair plan that is incredibly over
populated. Our goal should not to populate the fair plan, that's what makes
it unfair. The fair plan is to be depopulated as absolute much as
possible. However, this is where California absolutely needs to do reform
in the way we ensure and how we ensure, especially when it comes to the fair
plan. And it's something that we just were not able to get done by
the end of this session, I am fully expecting there to be just a barrage of reform bills
or a large effort, should I say, to address insurance in this upcoming session, two-year
session. And that is, when you're an insurance carrier in California and you're writing policies,
whatever percentage of the policies that exist in the state of California, that's the percent
of what you're liable for to cover for the fare plan.
So like in state farms, I stand to be corrected,
but like in state farms position,
if they have 21% of all policies are state farms,
they are now liable for 21% of the liability
of the fare plan.
That ties up their capital.
When you tie up their capital,
that means they can't continue to just write policies,
especially in high-risk areas, free milli, just let it go.
So somehow, some way, we have to relieve that pressure,
open up their capital, and then here's
the most important part.
It can't be just one, two, five, 10 houses within a community
that does the hardening.
It's got to be a community effort.
It's got to be where everyone does it together.
Otherwise, that fire, when it comes,
is just going to simply, as it did in the palisade,
go from one unprepared place to another unprepared place
and leave a wake of destruction behind.
So I'm not, thank you to that one person.
I am, I'm not advocating or justifying
for the insurance companies on any injustices
that they have and any greed that they're exercising.
But I just want to, I want to communicate,
this is not just some easy little fix
that's gonna happen overnight.
This is something that has been years and decades
in the making, and we've got to finally come to a place
where we've got the political fortitude and will
to make the changes that need to be made
so that you can finally get back into the market of insurance.
Chief Hox, thank you for being here.
And maybe this is a good time for you
to also say a little more about what IBHS does.
Yeah, so first of all, my background
is in the fire service, and then I
I had that great opportunity to join IBHS.
So don't ask me about insurance.
I know very little.
So anyways, IBHS, we're a nonprofit organization,
the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety.
We are funded by the insurance industry.
About 80% of the property and casualty insurers
across the country are member companies,
number of the reinsurance organizations.
And the insurance modelers like Verisk and Kotality
are member companies.
And so the money that they invest into us enables us to do research on severe weather,
so wind, wind over rain, hail, and then wildfire.
And you saw in the video our one-of-a-kind facility in the world
where we can conduct full-scale research on a structure as a set of components and then expose
it to as realistic as we can, the realistic conditions in an experimental research setting
as we can to the real world situation and see how that building responds to that exposure
as a set of components from the roof to the ground in the surrounding area just as it
would experience a real event. In particular, wildfires, we focus on how the embers flames
and radiant heat exploit vulnerabilities in the structure. And inside the test chamber,
you saw some of the videos where we can blow embers, create embers storms, and cast them
on to the structure and see how the embers flow around the structure and exploit components
of the structure. On the backside of our test chamber, we're conducting a lot of research
on structure to structure fire spread. So we started out with large sheds and now we're
working on looking at how, if an ADU is on the property and that ADU ignites, how does
that expose the single family home that's on that same property? So we look at spacing,
we look at the materials that the structures are made out of, we look at the orientation
of them to each other, we look at the wind speed that we're exposing them to.
And all the work that we do not only goes to our member companies, but it's made available
to all of you to help with wildfire policy, to help with local ordinances, developments.
We are heavily involved with the Office of the State Fire Marshal in the Sea Wooey Code
continued development of that.
And so, it's what we have incorporated along with the research from other renowned research
organizations like NIST and UL Fire Safety Research Institute into our wildfire prepared
program.
Thank you.
I'm thinking about this, right?
Because we want the fire science to be part of what the insurance industry is working
on and recognizing together in partnership with us.
I feel like we're just getting started
and we could talk all night, but we don't have all night.
So we're gonna do our last sort of lightning round question
here, which is from your perspective,
what is the most important thing that everyone should walk
out of here and do tonight?
Chief Isaacs.
Walk around your house, find those vulnerabilities,
understand that fire is opportunistic.
It's gonna find a way to get into your house,
do the home hardening, do the non-combustible roof,
do the zone zero, contact us, partner with us,
we will come help you,
and we will walk around your property with you
and tell you how to best protect your property.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Assembly member.
I think the one thing I hope everybody here does
is talks to two neighbors.
Share what you learned tonight,
help them understand.
This film is available to view online on PBS.
You can share it with your friends
who weren't here tonight,
and help them understand how we are.
I love this community.
I've raised my three children here.
It is dreamy.
And we can harness that amazing community power
to make ourselves safer.
So let's talk to each other and share this information.
Thank you.
Senator.
Assembly member, that is incredible.
that because really the most powerful force
in this room tonight is your voice.
However, if I may, can I build on your comments
and take it a step further?
Don't just trust that your neighbor's gonna go watch it.
Host a watch party at your house.
Bring them in, watch it together, have a discussion,
and see how you all can partner together
to help each other because there may be something
that you've got resources to do that could help both houses
and they have something that they could help with yours.
So let it become a community event
and do a little watch party at your house
and have a little fun at the same time.
Wine and cheese with it.
So our rock star fire safety legislators
just gave all you fire-wise leaders homework.
There we go.
I really wanna echo what Chief Isaac said is
we're not powerless even against
these high intensity wildfires.
We know a lot about what we can do to protect our homes,
addressing the vulnerabilities with the structure,
each of those components, and the surrounding areas,
and doing it together as a community.
Then we're gonna really drive down the risk of that fire
when it enters into the community
becoming that large loss fire.
We have to do it together though.
We can't do it individually.
So as to take a, I guess a talking point
from the Golden State Warriors were stronger together.
So let's do it together.
And to find out where all these resources are,
go to a renderready.com
and you'll find a lot of resources.
I think now we have a few minutes for Q and A.
Linda has a stack of questions.
Look at that stack.
Okay, so I know we have a lot of questions.
We're not going to be able to answer all of them.
We have,
Les, you wanna have a slumber party?
Just for format, we're going to go with questions until about 9.15, 9.20, that's so fancy.
After that, we will take a very short break and then we'll have public forum.
What is being done at the state level to reduce fuel loads?
Why is there such an imbalance in funding between fuel mitigation and home hardening?
And this is directed to our state electives, no surprise.
I can start with that.
Shortly after the Palisades, we learned very quickly, well, we knew this before, but Palisades
is what really concrete cemented the idea that we no longer have fire seasons, that
We're at fire risk all year round.
Yet we were still operating as though we had fire seasons.
And so what we did immediately, the Firefighters Act,
I partnered with the Pro-10, we joined authored,
and turned CAL FIRE, or worked with CAL FIRE,
to take their seasonal firefighters
and make them year round.
And when they're not, thank you very much,
I got my fan right here.
He was a cow fire chief.
And so the reason for that is, and this is true,
the reason for that was when they weren't fighting a fire,
they were out cutting down brush.
They were trimming up trees.
They were making sure that we were getting rid of the fuel
that would foster a greater fire.
And so that was the whole purpose behind it,
give a shout out to Contra Costa County Fire Department,
because they now have, and this is all not too long ago,
They now have two hand crews that go out
and they're year round and they work at mitigating
within the community, mitigating wildfire risk
by removing fuels on the ground.
So that's one thing we can do to help prevent
and mitigate fire.
Yeah, that was amazing work.
Thank you, Senator, for that.
I mean, there isn't really a fire season anymore, frankly.
That's part of why we need year round folks.
I think it's an interesting question.
Historically, we have been investing more resources
in what you've seen come to the community.
We got the Shaded Fuel Break here in Arinda.
It was one of the first projects from the Cal Fire grant.
And then because we were so successful,
we got a second one to go up and around the Berkeley Hills.
In part, we were winning those grants
because our communities were so good at partnering.
So when we apply with East Bay Mudd
and with the East Bay Park District and the fire
and the cities and everybody gets together,
multiple fire districts were able to win that money
and do that work.
And so we have seen a lot of that mitigation work come.
We then had to change the grants
because they weren't allowed to be used
to maintain a fuel break, which was ridiculous
because it is much cheaper to maintain a fuel break
than to go recut a fuel break.
So we did that and we were maintaining the fuel breaks
using that money, which was great news.
But the point is well taken that, as we saw in this,
we can slow the fire potentially,
especially if there's very little wind
and we've seen success in stopping fires
and brownies to date.
But we know we need to do more home hardening.
And so why is the state not investing more in that?
And the answer is, it's much more complicated.
It's much easier to give money to the fire district
to go out and do a fuel break
than it is to try to get every single homeowner.
And the most complicated part of those fuel breaks,
and the reason Chief Winniker has no hair,
is because you have to get every landowner to agree
to do the fuel mitigation on their land
for it to be successful.
And we had to do that work in order for it to work.
sometimes that's homeowner by homeowner,
depending on where you're doing that shaded fuel break.
And so if you think about even how hard it was
to get those minimal homeowners to agree to do that,
now you're talking about us using state dollars
to go house to house, it's complicated.
But as I said, we have changed the funding dynamics
to allow for that at the community level,
and we're hopeful that money will come in
to high-fire severity zones like Orinda,
and allow for community-level mitigation work
that does zone zero across a whole neighborhood,
and really starts to change the dynamic
if we do have a conflagration like we saw.
And we've gotten funding for those fuel break.
When did, I know, you helped us work with Chief Winnikart
to get the North Arinda fuel break.
Yes, which was many years ago.
And then we were able to get another five million,
two million of which is coming to here in Arinda
to work on the risk to OIS and that community.
They need some fuel mitigation work
and so we were able to bring another two million
in this year for that work,
which we're super grateful to partner
with the city to deliver.
Because if anyone like me has a kid at OAS,
we want to make sure those kids are safe.
And I was just going to prompt you, Senator Grayson,
and say, do you want to talk about how we're working
together regionally?
Yes, so we are doing, we created the East Bay Regional
Wildfire Task Force.
And the brainchild to that is Rachel Zinner,
right up here, who works in the office.
She's the one that really brought that all together.
Thank you so much for your good work.
We've been talking tonight about how to save a structure.
And that's very important because within that structure
of that home has our lifelong memories.
But the one thing we haven't really mentioned tonight
is saving lives.
And a bill that went through this year,
thanks to my colleague here for her support.
You have a school in this area called Sleepy Hollow.
And the road that goes to that school is so restricted.
And if there was ever a wildfire that would sweep through,
those children would be at risk along with every teacher.
And tonight, because of the support of the assembly member,
because of the signature of the governor,
that school now, upon call of the fire department,
calling for a high wildfire risk day,
that school can now allow the kids to stay home
and not come into a dangerous environment,
and the school continue to collect the ADA money
so that they stay whole.
And that was the fairest way to approach that
and make sure that we're not just protecting a structure,
we're actually protecting the lives
of our children in our community.
Okay, we got a few questions about wind patterns
that figured prominently in the film.
And how our wind patterns here,
different than SoCal,
What speed of sustainable winds do we get here?
Looking at specific houses in strategic locations
that would have a strong impact on fire spreading.
If those houses were made fire safe and did ignite.
How, we know, we see from the film that that would help.
How do we identify those houses,
especially ember casting and winds.
Can you address that?
Chief Isaacs, do you want us to take this one?
It's actually, it's pretty complicated to try to figure out where a spotfire ember is
going to land.
We know it's going to travel with the wind.
The one thing that we have going for us in Moraga and Arinda is most, not all, but a
lot of our canyons, our drainages, those features that we saw in Southern California, they don't
align with the wind.
So it's going to help us a little bit, but we still have the hazard.
We have the risk.
We have the threat there.
The best thing you can do is make sure your property is prepared to receive fire, that
there is no spot for that ember to land and catch something on fire.
Do not have that receptive fuel bed for those embers on your roof, on the ground immediately
adjacent to your home.
your house for wildfire because we can't control the wind and that wind is going to
blow and it's going to push that fire where it wants to push that fire. So that's the
best I can answer that one. Thank you. We got a lot of questions about home hardening
and some of these are kind of specific. So, you know, how much does it cost to get into
compliance for zone zero? What can I do with my redwood deck? Are metal roofs effective?
Are there certain plant species that are better than others? I wish we could stay here all
night and answer all these questions. We can't. So where can we go to get answers to these
questions? And maybe you can answer. If you have answers, you can provide them.
go to our website, look at our ordinances, speak to the fire marshal, speak to our fuels
mitigation staff, they can answer the questions on what about my deck, what about the vegetation.
We don't give, we don't list vegetation by name anymore, we list it by characteristic.
Is that vegetation going to burn?
Is it dry?
What is the fuel moisture?
We all know about our Juniper campaign that it looks really nice but it's going to burn
very hot. So go to our website, go to a render ready, and we will answer those
questions. And if you don't find them there, you call us. And the Ambassador
program. So if you really want someone to come out to your house who's trained in
how to do this and point to stuff and get that level of detailed questions,
start there and then also call a MOFD. Okay, in addition to home hardening work,
Look, they transitioned for me.
How can we make our evacuation routes like Maraga Road and Maraga Way safer, i.e. clear
way the vegetation overgrowth, especially in the understory.
Even when it's on private property, it affects all of us.
And this is for the fire chief and city, so I guess that would be me.
The fire district is, since I became fire marshal in 2020, we focus heavily on our evacuation
routes.
they are a lot better, they are not perfect.
If you live on a major evacuation route,
and that's pretty much any street in our community
that we're gonna use to evacuate,
make sure you're complying with our code.
If your neighbor's not, give us a phone call.
We're gonna come out and try to educate your neighbor
and make them comply with that code.
And if they don't wanna do it voluntarily,
well then we have the citation process for them.
But it's something that's critically important
all of us to be able to get out safely and in terms of what is happening and we
did just give another shout out to the city they you just did those new I
don't know what the word is but they the bollard bollard bollards bollard's the
new so that they can turn both lanes going out towards the freeway so they
are making changes to make our evacuation routes safer so we have done a
lot. We certainly have to do more but what I think should give everyone some
peace of mind is there is an incredible amount of communication and I want to
give Chief Isaacs and our city manager Linda Smith who's over here hiding back
there credit for as well as the rest of City Council for supporting that policy
wise. There is a whole lot of communication now that happens and a lot
it is focused on evacuation. I mean we can't create new roads. We're kind of
trying and that we're looking into a feasibility study to create additional
road on Moraga Way that would be used for a bike and pedestrian lane but then
in the event of an evacuation could be used for EVA access which could
theoretically allow two lanes to go one way during an evacuation. So we're even
trying to kind of create a third more, expand the roads, but obviously that's a very expensive,
very challenging project, though it's one we're pursuing, but we are doing a lot in
terms of making sure community education like this, all the community education that you
can do to make sure people know their evacuation zones.
We have purchased state-of-the-art wildfire modeling software, Ladras, and you can see
Again, if you go to ArrendaReady.com, all this information is on there on our website.
You can see different simulations modeled and you can actually see the difference between
taking two cars and one and it is huge, right?
So please look at that.
If you look at that once, you will only take one car, right?
And that can save lives.
So, and, you know, we, you know, certainly the legislation
that we worked on to make sure that if it's a really,
really risky day, we can just close our schools.
Because at that point, we want everyone to get out of Dodge, right?
We don't want anyone to stick around.
And just to be proactive, right?
And so there's tabletop exercises we recently did.
And we have communications on the city leadership level
and including on your elected representatives level.
We have a two by two that's two members of the city council
and two members of the MOFD board that meet
probably every other month, maybe quarterly
to talk about how we can work together.
And so we're doing a lot.
Anything else, chief, that I?
Looking for Linda, there you are.
Anything else you wanna add?
Okay.
And I think that probably ends our time with the panel.
So if you could just, thank you all for being here,
and can we give a big round of applause to our panel?
And then I'm gonna turn it over to the mayor
and I think the panel is officially dismissed.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Yeah, we are gonna take another short break.
The public forum is just a meeting formality
for anybody who does wanna make comments specific
to tonight's agenda item, not on general.
You're welcome to stick around.
We're gonna let the panelists go ahead and take off
or they'll be in the lobby or the nearby bar, their choice.
Go try Sorso or the fourth floor apparently is hoppin'.
As given that the meeting is technically still going on,
I will ask if anybody would like to come
and speak for the public forum.
If you do, I don't think we have speaker cards.
Just come on up and I'll hand to the mic.
We will ask people to speak about what was on the agenda
and to limit their comments to three minutes.
Anyone wanna talk?
Seeing none, we will close the public meeting
and thank you all for coming.