About 50 insurance agents, contractors, builders, developers and first responders spent Wednesday learning about a new program encouraging safer home construction and property management in wildfire zones.
Christie Wiley of the Hill Country Fire Coalition of Texas led the session in the Boerne City Council chambers.
Some Texas homeowners received notices recently that insurance policies on their homes are not being renewed as written, due to the threat of fire danger.
“Insurance companies are abandoning homeowners in the highest risk wildfire areas. They cannot charge prices high enough to take on the risk they see coming,” according to the website, Deep Sky Alpha.
Wiley was instrumental in creating the coalition in 2024 to help safeguard the community from the devastating impacts of wildfires.
“Our mission,” its website states, “is to build resilient communities by reducing wildfire risks and promoting safety through education, proactive measures and active community involvement.”
The new Wildfire Prepared Home program with the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, or IBHS, took center stage.
“They are offering an opportunity for insurance companies to reconsider insuring properties that will meet those standards,” Wiley said.
IBHS wildfire researchers have spent years researching wildfire through both field and lab studies. Now, in collaboration with other wildfire community experts, IBHS has identified mitigation actions critical to reducing wildfire risk.
While the program does not offer funding to participants, it can help make the difference whether a homeowner or a property owner is able to afford — or in some cases, even find — insurance coverage.
“It’s a set of pretty stringent requirements,” Wiley said. The house must be “hardened” to fire, which Wiley said means all vents are meshed so embers cannot enter the home.
“A zero-to-five-foot radius (around the home) must be completely noncombustible, all the way around,” she said. “Routine landscaping has always included bushes and flowers and all those kinds of things. But when they say zero to 5 feet, it’s zero to 5 feet of noncombustibles ... just to give you a fire break, if the fire would approach your house.”
The purpose of Wednesday’s meeting was “to increase awareness.”
“It’s really important that the builders, developers, the architects and the real estate people get on board, because from the very beginning, they can design up wildfire prepared homes,” she said.
This also takes the burden off the individual homeowner facing a non-renewable policy and the expenses they will incur to bring their home up to the IBHS standards.
The presentation included a SimTable demonstrating how wildfires grow and consume the wild growth areas some developers and builders are targeting for future housing developments.
Operated by Mike Lloyd, project manager with Community Wildlife Defense Group, the table showed how wildfires might spread through housing developments and subdivisions — particularly subdivisions and developments with only one entrance and exit.
Boerne Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief/Fire Marshal Robert Lee said rough terrain surrounding some of the housing developments can severely restrict rescue and firefighting ability.
He urged several developers and builders in attendance to provide a second entry point to give residents “a fighting chance” to escape a blaze.
Wiley and the coalition can be reached at 830-326-9031 or at www.hcfccotc.xom.
Comment
Comments