What is “Home Hardening?”

New guidelines for making your home more fire safe have been developed in recent years.

California has had a significant increase in very large and destructive fires. These fires, sometimes called “Megafires”, occur when there are hot, high winds and low humidities. These conditions help to create a firestorm which showers embers down like rain. Foresters, firefighters and other wildfire specialists have studied which houses have survived these firestorms and which haven’t, and determined the specific house conditions and designs which helped to save homes.

Based on these findings, guidelines have been developed under the general category of “Home Hardening” that focus on improvements to homes and outbuildings and the first 5 feet from these structures. These guidelines add to the Defensible Space work we’ve been doing for years that reduces flammable materials like vegetation from 0 – 30 feet and 30 – 100 feet from our homes.

In the fall of 2019, Fire Safe Santa Cruz County hosted a series of presentations on Home Hardening.

2019 FSSCC Home Hardening Video screenshot

Video Transcript

patient I welcome it so we’re gonna start first talking about how homes burn and then you know really focusing in on the vulnerabilities in the house I’m not the brains behind this operation I have a great colleague dr. Steve Quarles who worked with the University of California for many years in this field then went on to the Insurance Institute for business and home safety is now retired from there and is back with us so this is very empirical based very evidence-based and we have some great information for you together the fire that you’ve been preparing for is maybe not the fire to prepare for but you don’t know what what kind of fire you’re gonna get and so let’s talk a little bit about the kinds of exposures that you’re likely to experience in your home and your home environment most of us I think have been focused on this idea that there’s going to be a flame front that’s going to come at my house that might be a hundred feet tall might be 10 feet tall it might be 1 foot tall but it’s going to you know expose my house to a high degree of heat and direct flame contact that is the type of fire that most firefighters are actually able to respond to and be able to manage the more difficult challenges are when your neighbor’s house catches on fire and the amount of heat from your neighbor’s house catching on fire overwhelms your conditions so the survival of your

Yana Valachovic is a UCCE Forest Advisor and a leader in this research. She presented important information on how to make your home more fire safe.

We highly recommend that everyone living in high fire risk areas view Yana’s presentation and take the necessary steps to protect your home.

For example, install metal screens on your rain gutters and vent screens with a 1/8″ mesh size. Cover over or replace all 1/4” screen with 1/8” screens.

Santa Cruz County Home Hardening Info