35MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP PHOTO
A neighborhood in
Lake Elsinore, Calif.,
covered in fire retardant
dropped by an air tankerbiggest for 1 4 years. Last December’s Thomas Fire
surpassed the Cedar, burning an area almost as large
as Los Angeles; that record lasted just eight months,
until the Ranch Fire, a part of the Mendocino
Complex Fire, overtook it on Aug.12. And there are
still months to go before the end of the ire season—
if that term means anything anymore.
This second straight year of historic California
wildires has brought a mix of hand-wringing about
the pace of climate change and arguments over who
should pay for damages. But the people whose job
it is to think about how to minimize the number of
lives lost and homes destroyed by wildires say oi-
cials have been slow to adopt meaningful reform.
“Our fear is it’s going to take thousands of people
dying,” says Michele Steinberg, who’s in charge
of wildire safety for the National Fire Prevention
Association. “And that’s not beyond the realm of
imagination at this point.”
State and local governments may not be able
to reverse the rising temperatures and prolonged
droughts that spur wildfires. But according to
Steinberg and others, there are changes that can
help—including applying tougher building codes to
more new homes, retroitting old ones, more aggres-
sive landscape rules, less development in the most
vulnerable areas, and letting insurers charge premi-
ums that relect the risk of wildire. Those reforms,
however, remain anathema in a state squeezed byrising housing costs and the instinct to help commu-
nities rebuild as quickly as possible.
California already has some of the most aggres-
sive building codes in the country: Since 2008 any
home built in an area with the highest risk of wild-
ires must be constructed according to strict ire-
retardant standards, according to Stuart Tom, a
planning oicial for the city of Burbank and a board
member with the International Code Council,
which sets model building codes. Those standards
include double-paned windows with tempered
glass, ine-grain metallic mesh coverings on attic
vents, and roof coverings that leave no room for
burning embers to get in.
If local oicials want to improve ire protection,
Tom says, they have the authority to apply those
requirements more widely, beyond just the nar-
rowly deined areas the state has designated as hav-
ing the highest risk. He says he’s not aware of any
local governments that have used that authority.
A tougher issue is what to do about homes
that predate the 2008 code. When it comes to
wildires, a building is only as safe as the homes
around it: If a house ignites, odds are that the
one next door will too, even if it’s built to the
new standards. Roy Wright, the former head
of risk mitigation for the Federal Emergency
Management Agency and now chief executive
oicer at the Insurance Institute for Business