Cal Fire talks home protection

This article was written by BenitoLink intern Jessica Parga. Lea este artículo en español aquí.

Cal Fire is heading door to door in San Benito County, informing residents on how to protect their homes from fire and how to meet legal requirements, including a California state defensible space regulation that may soon go into effect. 

“Our goal is to educate, not punish,” said Forestry Technician Stephen Bautista, who notes that most people are receptive to their visits. “There’s a lot of people that recognize catastrophic fires such as the Park Fire in Chico or The Palisades that just happened in January. A lot of people are waking up and they’re like, ‘Man, this could have happened to me.’”

Technicians visit mostly rural homes or State Responsibility Areas throughout the year. Homeowners who aren’t in compliance have 90 days to fix a problem before Cal Fire law enforcement issues a ticket. 

Forestry Technician Luis Perez is responsible for Cal Fire’s defensible space program in San Benito and Monterey counties. He went out into the field to show BenitoLink what inspectors work on everyday. 

“Defensible space is the buffer between your structure and the surrounding area,” according to the Cal Fire website. “Adequate defensible space acts as a barrier to slow or halt the progress of fire that would otherwise engulf your property.”

It not only gives homes a better chance of survival, but also creates safer conditions for firefighters, the website states.

While conducting inspections in Tres Pinos, Perez pointed to two properties across the street from each other. One had branches from nearby trees hanging near the house, with dead leaves in the yard and dried shrubs along the sides of the building. The other had a relatively bare yard with plants several feet away from the house.

Perez said that if a fire occurred in the area and firefighters had to prioritize one of the two homes, they would try to save the second house, the one with the best chance of making it.

“This is a small part of a bigger chess game,” said Perez. “It’s the inspections. It’s the community involvement. It’s fuel reduction. It’s vegetation management. Prescribed burns. So everywhere we go, we are like the ambassadors of Cal Fire. We try to give people information.” 

During inspections, Cal Fire hands out information packets with tips on home hardening and defensible space zones, so residents will know how to give their property the best chance against fire. 

Home hardening includes using ignition-resistant materials when repairing or constructing home exteriors. Other tips range from clearing out rain gutters, closing the fireplace flue during the off season, and ensuring a property’s address is clearly visible in the case of an emergency. 

Read more home hardening tips here.

Possible new ‘Zone 0’ Regulation

Cal Fire sets up the defensible space in zones, to lay out best practices for preventing a wildfire from spreading. Zone 1 extends 30 feet from a structure; Zone 2 extends from 30 to 100 feet. Requirements include removing dead vegetation and trimming low hanging branches. Creating vertical and horizontal space between grass, shrubs and trees helps prevent fire from moving quickly from one source to the next. 

On top of their standard inspections, Cal Fire is informing homeowners of the potential new law regarding Zone 0, in order to educate as many residents before it becomes mandatory.

This new zone will restrict what can surround the first five feet of the home, such as plants and mulch, to reduce the risk of structures catching fire. 

According to Cal Fire, “Zone 0 applies to all areas identified as State Responsibility Areas and ‘very high’ fire hazard severity zones of Local Responsibility Areas.” 

To determine if a property falls under these areas, scroll down on this Cal Fire page and type in the property’s address to search the Fire Hazard Severity Zone map.

Zone 0 is expected to be finalized at the end of 2025. It’s expected to include a grace period for existing residential structures, giving homeowners about three years to meet the new regulation.

Cal Fire is also working with Firewise communities—organisations where residents volunteer to reduce the risk of wildfires through mitigation and education. Cal Fire has been conducting trainings on how these volunteers can assess homes and properties themselves with paperwork nearly identical to the official Cal Fire inspections, but with none of the legal weight. 

Across Monterey and San Benito counties, there are more than 50 Firewise groups working to make their areas safer.

Anyone can make a Firewise community by organizing with their neighbors and undergoing a certification process. These groups also benefit by being able to apply for grants to help fund fuel reduction methods such as funding the use of heavy equipment to clear stretches of land or provide chipping.

“What we want people to do,” said Perez, “is [improve] the defensible space that they can right now and just understand that the cleaner the vegetation is closest to the structure, the safer the house is.”

The BenitoLink Internship Program is a paid, skill-building program that prepares local youth for a professional career. This program is supported by Monterey Peninsula Foundation AT&T Golf Tour, United Way, Taylor Farms and the Emma Bowen Foundation.

We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. Producing local news is expensive, and community support keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service nonprofit news.