Fire Season 2005: Protect Your Clients from Wildfire Dangers
California and its Western counterparts are just beginning to enter the 2005 wildfire season, and as usual, fire risk is extremely high. Are your clients prepared to protect their homes and property from the potential dangers of wildfires? What can you do as an agent or broker to help them prepare?
California’s record-making wet winter will lead to a dangerous fire season, said Bruce Turbeville, chairman and CEO of the Fire Safe Council.
“It’s very early fire season right now,” he said. “Some of the areas aren’t even in fire season right now. That’s because we had a very long and wet winter. What that has done is that has given us a tremendous grass crop–once it dries; it’s going to be very dangerous.
“We’ve never had a year where there wasn’t a fire season. Some are worse than others. This one is starting late, but it still could be very dangerous. People are not going to be ready for a sudden fire season. Everybody’s thinking green, and in reality it’s going to be very dry,” Turbeville added.
“Virtually the entire state [of California] is prone,” said Pete Moraga, communications specialist at the Insurance Information Network of California.
“There are several areas that we as the insurance industry, the fire fighting entities of the state (city, county and state fire agencies) and local communities are trying to promote in anticipation of what could be one of the worst fire seasons ever due to the extreme rainfall we had this last winter,” Moraga said.
Learning from the past
Several changes have occurred in response to the horrific wildfires of October 2003, which scorched thousands of acres across Southern and Central California, and destroyed hundreds of homes in the process.
One of the most important changes was the passage of SB 1369 (Kuehl), which was passed into law Jan. 1, 2005. SB 1369 requires 100′ of defensible space around homes built in wildfire-prone areas, which specifies the removal of all brush, flammable vegetation or combustible growth.
Insurers are also paying attention to Urban-Wildland Interface or UWI–and adjacent to forests where people build houses, said Jerry Davies, director of communications at the Personal Insurance Federation of California.
“Homeowners who choose to live in the UWI high fire prone areas today are building homes, or living in homes that may not adhere to strong fire protection/prevention methods,” Davies said.
“For instance, they may not be clearing brush according to the new law on the books that requires a 100 foot clearance.Others who are building or have remodeled, may notpay attention to vegetation that is fire retardant and may have plants and shrubs around the home that are highly flammable should a wildfire occur.
“Most homeowners insurance companiestoday, because of lessons learned from the 1993 fires and 2003 fires, are paying closer attention to the fire prone (UWI) areas of California and assessinghomeowners’ preventionbefore insuring,”Davies continued.
“They are paying close attention to defensible space, trimming of trees and fire retardant vegetation around homes in those areas. Agents and company personnel are inspecting many homes in the UWI areas to make sure that homeowners are paying attention to fire prevention programs and obeying the defensible space laws. The future lies in satellite–GPS–or global positioning satellite. Companies will be able to view their insureds via satellite in high fire areas and then be able to tell just how prone to fire the areas are based on history and current fire conditions,” he said.
In addition to SB 1369, the role of California’s Fire Safe Council has become more prominent. Established in 1993, the Fire Safe Council’s mission is to “preserve and enhance California’s manmade and natural resources by providing leadership and support that mobilizes all Californians to protect their homes, communities and environment from wildfires.”
With over 90 local councils across California, the Fire Safe Councils have continued to provide education and research in communities across the state to mitigate future disasters.
“We participated very strongly just a couple of weeks ago in Wildfire Awareness Week,” Turbeville said. “We put out press releases and local councils participated up and down the state trying to make the public aware that fire season is coming and now is the time to clear.”
“In the aftermath of the severe firestorms of 2003, many communities across California began to get more personally involved in mitigating the risk factors in their communities,” Moraga said. “In 2004 we conducted a major research project in cooperation with the Fire Safe Councils to look at how communities have responded to fire threats since the 2003 wildfires. Fire Safe councils are probably one of the best resources communities can count on for dealing head on with the fire threat in California.”
“The Councils are becoming much more aggressive in their outreach,” said Bill Sirola, spokesperson for State Farm Insurance. “Local authorities have become much more aware of the hazards. It would seem that we have to relearn these lessons every few years. At this point, given the fact that it’s been a wet winter and that there’s a lot of undergrowth, there seems to be a great deal of awareness that homeowners do have to take the proper steps. It would appear from what we’ve seen that people are being very careful this year.”
The do’s and don’ts
What can you do to protect your clients’ and their property? Take the time to advise your clients of the new legislation, and provide them with tips to make their property more defensible. One way to get the word out is to simply create an informative brochure and mail it to all of your clients. Be available to speak with your clients should they have questions.
“First and foremost, it is urgent that homeowners clear the brush around their homes,” Moraga said. “Due to the 2003 fires, many cities and municipalities strengthened their brush clearing laws, making them mandatory and increasing the areas designated for clearance.
“Many cities and municipalities also passed stricter building codes, calling for automatic sprinkler systems, non-flammable roofs and exterior construction materials for homes in wildland areas, and street widening and redesign in remote and rural areas where fire equipment had a very difficult time reaching in 2003,” he continued.
Turbeville offered several tips in addition to having proper clearance: homeowners should keep their gutters clean and clear of debris; trees should be trimmed and kept clear of debris; and flammable trash and combustible items should be disposed of properly and away from the home. He also urged homeowners to check with their local fire department for local ordinances, which vary from community to community.
Most importantly, Turbeville said, is that consumers need to make sure they are adequately insured; especially with the constant change of value in the real estate market.
“We have worked diligently to inform consumers about the importance of keeping their insurance coverage up-to-date,” Moraga added. “By reviewing their policies at least once a year, evaluating the rising cost of construction and how it impacts their ability to rebuild if their home is totally destroyed and keeping a current home inventory of belongings (we now have a free software package to do your home inventory online and store in an off-site hard drive such as Yahoo or Hotmail), they can best assure that their coverage will be enough to rebuild after a disaster.”
“Ultimately it’s less an insurance issue than it is a personal protection issue,” Sirola said.
“We’ve rebuilt a great many homes in the fire prone areas with little or no problems whatsoever,” he added. “The underinsurance issue always comes back ultimately to the homeowners. [They] have the responsibility to make sure that they’re insuring at the right level. We have said all along that you shouldn’t treat insurance as purely an expense. You should look at insurance as you do any other professional service you receive. You’ve got to take care. You’ve got to make sure that it’s where you need it to be for the contingencies that you might face.”
“The key is to think fire safety and don’t be caught off guard just because we’ve had a long wet winter,” Turbeville said. “The potential is very real; they’re already starting to have fires in Southern California, and it’s just beginning. I do work with the insurance industry on the council, and they’re doing their part to help us get the word out. Nobody is going to want to see it, but it’s going to happen again. It’s not a matter of if, it’s just when.”
For more information on the Fire Safe Council and a Homeowners’ Checklist, please visit http://www.firesafecouncil.org/.