Survivable and insurable homes are achievable for all LA County communities
SACRAMENTO, Calif. and RICHBURG, S.C., Feb. 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and the broader Los Angeles community continue to reckon with the devastating toll of the January 2025 wildfires, a broad coalition of housing, fire science, insurance and policy experts are urging Los Angeles to rebuild using Chapter 7A building code. This diverse group has written a letter to Gov. Newsom, Senate and Assembly leaders, Los Angeles Mayor Bass, Supervisor Kathryn Barger and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors urging them to act now to ensure the rebuilding process incorporates simple, clear and actionable construction and landscaping requirements that will reduce wildfire risk.
“Ensuring the next generation of homes in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena are survivable and insurable is not a barrier to rebuilding – it is a necessity,” said Roy Wright, President and CEO of the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS). “The good news is that a path to a brighter, safer and more insurable future for Los Angeles residents is available, affordable and achievable.”
Los Angeles must confront two stark truths: 1. the destruction of these beloved communities has not reduced the broader wildfire risk to Los Angeles, and 2. the insurance market in California remains severely challenged.
“We must rebuild survivable homes and communities that can withstand the wildfires we know they will again face so homeowners have a home to return to,” said Wright. “Insurable means homes and neighborhoods that carriers are willing and have the capacity and tools to insure because homeowners have undertaken meaningful and verifiable risk reduction actions.”
Chapter 7A is the required code for building design and construction in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). These established and tested code requirements include many of the wildfire mitigation actions that collectively reduce the risk of home ignitions from embers, flames and radiant heat.
“California has the tools to rebuild with wildfire resilience: California Building Code Chapter 7A,” said Dan Dunmoyer, President and CEO of the California Building Industry Association. “Under current law the Pacific Palisades will already be required to build to Chapter 7A. We must go the extra step and rebuild Altadena to this more resilient code. The status quo is not good enough; the Altadena community must be rebuilt using Chapter 7A.”
The coalition further called upon public policy decision makers to speed up enforcement of newly released Zone 0 Defensible Space regulations.
“Wildfire science is clear: removing combustible material from the five feet around a home is among the most important mitigation actions a homeowner can take,” said Dr. Michael Gollner, director of the Berkeley Fire Research Lab and Associate Professor and Deb Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Berkley. “It reduces the risk that wind-blown embers will ignite the home via burnable material like fences that connect to structures and adds breaks between connective fuels that allow wildfires to spread into communities. It is a step forward that the Zone 0 regulations are being rolled out, but existing homeowners should be incentivized to implement these changes and not wait three years to enforce these changes. Los Angeles city and county officials should adopt and enforce local Zone 0 requirements as soon as possible and apply them throughout the rebuilding phase.”
List of Signatures on the Letter:
American Agents Alliance
American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA)
Buildstrong Coalition
California Building Industry Association
California Mortgage Bankers Association
California Chamber of Commerce (CalChamber)
Insurance for Good
Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of California (IIABCAL)
Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I)
Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC)
NFIB California
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
Pacific Association of Domestic Insurance Companies (PADIC)
Personal Insurance Federation of California (PIFC)
Reinsurance Association of America (RAA)
Western Insurance Agents Association
Jeff Meston
Executive Director
California Fire Chiefs Association
Bob Roper
CEO
Western Fire Chiefs Association
Josh Waldo
President
International Association of Fire Chiefs
Mark Brown
Executive Officer
Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority
Jennifer Gray Thompson
CEO
After the Fire USA
Jacy Hyde
Executive Director
California Fire Safe Council
David Shew
Fire Administrator
Napa County, California
Carolyn Kousky
Founder
Insurance for Good
Jack Cohen, Ph.D.
Research Physical Scientist
Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory
US Forest Service Research, retired
Michael J. Gollner, Ph.D.
Director
Berkeley Fire Research Lab
Associate Professor and Deb Faculty Fellow
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
Ann E. Jeffers, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Kate Dargan
California State Fire Marshal
CAL FIRE, retired
Arnaud Trouvé
Professor and Chair
Department of Fire Protection Engineering,
University of Maryland, College Park
Alexandra D. Syphard
Senior Research Scientist
Conservation Biology Institute
Adjunct Professor Department of Geography
San Diego State University
Frank Frievalt
Director
Wildland-Urban Interface FIRE Institute
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Craig B. Clements, Ph.D.
Director
Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center
Professor and Chair
Department of Meteorology and Climate Science
San José State University
Michele Barbato, Ph.D., P.E. (LA, Italy), F.ASCE, F.SEI, F.EMI
Professor of Structural Engineering and Structural Mechanics
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Director UC Davis Climate Adaptation Research Center
Director
CITRIS Climate Initiative, CITRIS and the Banatao Institute (UCB/UCD/UCM/UCSC)
University of California, Davis
Kimiko Barrett, Ph.D.
Sr. Research and Policy Analyst
Headwaters Economics
Eulàlia Planas, Ph.D.
Professor Head of the Centre for Technological Risk Studies
Chemical Engineering Department
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Elsa Pastor, Ph.D.
Professor
Centre for Technological Risk Studies
Chemical Engineering Department
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Crystal Kolden, Ph.D.
Director Fire Resilience Center
Associate Professor School of Engineering
University of California, Merced
Stephen L. Quarles, Ph.D.
University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor, emeritus
Chief Scientist for Wildfire and Durability, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, retired
Albert Simeoni, Ph.D.
WPI Site Director NSF-IUCRC Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center
Professor and Department Head
Department of Fire Protection Engineering
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
James L Urban, PhD
Faculty NSF-IUCRC Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center
Assistant Professor
Department of Fire Protection Engineering
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Guillermo Rein, PhD
Professor of Fire Science and Director of Research
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Imperial College London, UK
Christopher J. Anthony
Former Chief Deputy Director
CAL FIRE
Yana Valachovic, RPF #2740
Northern California Lead
California Fire Science Consortium
About the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
The IBHS mission is to conduct objective, scientific research to identify and promote effective actions that strengthen homes, businesses and communities against natural disasters and other causes of loss. Learn more at IBHS.org.
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SOURCE Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety
