A firewise community is a volunteer program where neighbors come together to get organized, find direction, and take precautions to protect their homes against wildfire. A lot of homes in California are surrounded by forests, high brush, and wildfire areas and neighborhoods like these are coming together! Put on by the National Fire Protection Association, the firewise communities teach each other how to deal with living in high-risk wildfire areas. Wildfires are going to happen one way or another, but being prepared for one can save so many lives.
What Exactly Do Firewise Communities Do?
Firewise communities do many things to take precautions against wildfires. One of the precautions they take is the way new homes or remodeling is done. They make sure that these homes are being built away from high wind direction risk that pushes the fire into the home. In all homes, making sure that fire-resistant materials are always being used. Firewise communities also work with firefighters to create a plan of evacuation and emergency protocols. Some plants are not used in these firewise communities and the removal of brush and trees around the homes is also performed. Workshops are ongoing as well that provide the community with educational materials on emergency protocols, how to deal with fire hazards, and how to implement firewise proof homes.
Unity One Insurance & The California Fair Plan
Firewise communities are something we really admire here at Unity One Insurance and we work directly with these communities. Since these areas are in a high-risk fire brush zone, there is a pretty good chance that some of the homes in these communities are insured with the California Fair Plan! If you are a part of a firewise community, you will get up to a 7% discount on your homeowner’s insurance policy with the CFP!
Being in the insurance industry for over 30 years has given us a lot of experience and knowledge needed to create the perfect homeowner’s policy. The California Fair Plan only covers certain perils. In order to create a more wholesome policy, something called a Difference In Conditions or DIC is needed to go along with it. A DIC covers liability, water damage, and other perils. If you put the California Fair Plan and a DIC together, it gives you something close to a normal home policy. We review your current policy for free and make sure that everything is correct. In many cases, people are either overinsured and overpaying or people are underinsured and do not have enough coverage. Most of the time is the latter, and it’s very scary to see.
How To Start Your Own Firewise Communities
- Step 1! You will need at least 8 single-family dwelling homes and someone to create the boundary size for your community. This can be the fire department, state forestry agency, and even your property management company. The max amount of homes that can be in a community is 2500.
- Now that you have your members and the boundary size, you will need to get a written fire risk assessment. You can obtain one of these from the state forestry agency or the fire department. Along with the risk assessment, an action plan is also needed. The risk assessment states where the community is good at reducing fire risk and where they need to improve. An action plan is what projects they are going to do and invest in to minimize the risk. Risk assessments must be done every 5 years and action plans must be done every 3 years.
- So you have the members and plan of action, now what? Time needs to be dedicated to the community in order to follow through with the plan. Each home must do at least 1 hour of volunteer work per year, but a monetary value of 1 hour of volunteer work will suffice as well. All volunteer work has to obviously go toward the firewise community effort in order for it to count.
- Now you are able to finally submit the application! Apply at https://portal.firewise.org/user/login and explain how your community has taken action to become firewise!
Check to see if there already is firewise communities near you! Listed here are the firewise communities in California. For more information on communities, go to https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/Wildfire/Firewise-USA.
