While the month of May means spring flowers for much of the country, its arrival in California brings the ominous start of wildfire season, and this year’s forecast calls for record-breaking fires and a greater need for wildfire resiliency.
Looking at the forecast can help the state align proper resources and perhaps put other measures in place, but the built environment is what it is. However, future construction offers more possibility for wildfire resiliency.
Understanding Wildfire Threat
A white paper titled “BuildLA — Challenges: Solutions, Wildfire Recovery, and Rebuild 2025-2029” shares insights on how to develop fire resilient housing by focusing on a holistic approach that has high-performance, airtight building envelopes at the center.
Authors, Alfonso Ceja-Villa, commissioner at Habitat for Humanity, along with the co-founders of AM51 Inc., Andreas Benzing and Nick Mandala, write that the value of an airtight envelope is that it integrates all the individual practices into a unified system, it blocks embers, and it limits oxygen flow, which can prevent an out-of-control fire from entering and igniting trapped flammable gasses.
The report explores the science of the weather patterns that are created and fueled by wildfire conditions, such as fire-induced thunderstorms created from updrafts that lift moisture into the troposphere and then also create pressure imbalances.
The pressure drop sucks out the home’s oxygen, and also can pull embers into homes. Those embers then interact with flammable gasses that are in many different forms, even coming from a single burning couch. Then, the growing pressure differentials can force the gases into confined spaces where they can reach explosive concentrations.
The oxygen depletion and the pressure differentials make a unique cocktail of atmospheric physics and material science, that turns into a continuous, destructive feedback loop. These are extreme conditions, but they can be stopped or mitigated with airtight design, the right ventilation, and non-combustible materials according to the report.
“If an airtight building envelope—paired with an energy-positive design—can slash energy use by up to 90%, enhance healthy airflow, quiet our spaces, and, crucially, save lives with fire resistance… maybe it’s time we rewrite the rules. Let’s make this the world standard,” said Benzing, one of the report’s three authors.
The report highlights the example of this type of construction built by architect Greg Chasen with his Passive House design that survived the 2025 Pacific Palisades fires while all the neighboring homes were destroyed. Its airtight construction, tempered glass windows, and ventless exterior were important to surviving the fires.
The report offers a three-pronged solution for the future that includes financial, land use, and community-based prefabrication solutions, to redefine how resources and construction are coordinated, which will allow for fire-resilient, energy-positive homes that can be built affordably, proactively or reactively.
“An offsite prefabrication consortium reimagines factory-built homes to leverage the building system inputs to reduce construction costs from about $1,500 per square foot to about $450 per square foot,” the report said.
The offsite construction methods also shift the reliance on local labor after an emergency to cut labor costs and to produce housing with shorter construction cycles.
“With fire and with many other things, there has always been an idea that passive house is a big upgrade and it has been a big sticking point because people think it’s more expensive,” author Mandala said. “But we show interesting data that adding that envelope has a potential lifesaving effect and doesn’t have to be hard to switch to, and it’s already part of the process for many builders. It is not a massive cost, and it’s not difficult, and it can be incorporated more universally in the future.”
Plus, with Passive House construction, the vents in attic spaces and other places where embers enter are cut out by default.
Where Can We Build
Today, home buyers have more information at their disposal to understand climate risk than ever with sites like Realtor.com and Zillow that offer climate risk data specific to individual properties. Yet, the buyers also should be able to trust that the housing developer thoroughly evaluated the area before building, especially if it is a fire-prone area.
Joel Efosa is the CEO of Fire Cash Buyer and says developers need to look at multiple factors before developing.
“The first layer is environmental risk—wildfire maps, wind corridors, topography, and vegetation density, but risk modeling has to go deeper,” he said. “We look at infrastructure resilience, emergency response capacity, and insurance market stability. A high-risk zone without reliable coverage or a functioning evacuation plan isn’t viable long-term, no matter how resilient the construction claims to be.”
His company will assess homeownership risk in newly built communities in wildfire zones by looking at local fire history, proximity to fuel loads, projected insurance trends, and real-time housing turnover data.
John Ohanian is the general manager of California community Silverwood, a new community being built in San Bernardino County, California, that experienced several wildfires last year.
“Developers need to be aware of the fuel management programs in place and any impediments to completing appropriate brush clearing efforts,” he advised. “This can often be a contentious issue with environmental groups, and you need to be aware of any historical issues with fuel management. Developers need to be careful about access and evacuation routes as well. Most importantly, developers need to work closely with the local fire protection district to have a strong working relationship for risk management.”
Another consideration is how close the development sits to heavy vegetation and highly flammable fuels, and to manage them with a combination of wet zones, thinning zones, and fire-resistant planting.
For the physical structure of the home, Ohanian says it’s important to use non-combustible roofs, flat attic vents, no exposed wood surfaces, and tempered windows. Plus, fire resistant plant materials should be the basis of landscaping and the homeowner’s association should have rules in place for active brush management.
With housing supply a critical, national issue, developers are still looking for land to build housing. More and more land is being exposed to wildfire risk, so developers have to make choices and be smart about home buyer safety.
“In high-risk regions, the trade-off for a developer is clear—lower short-term land costs versus escalating insurance premiums, limited resale potential, and liability exposure,” said Efosa. “Developers can hit short-term targets by building in fringe areas, but long-term value creation in fire zones is limited unless they’re integrating truly resilient design and working with buyers who understand the risks.”
The actual use of the land impacts the pay off as well.
“Developers are having to reduce density in high fire zones to allow for more defensible space around residential units,” said Ohanian. “Additionally, developers are having to install more infrastructure to support more robust emergency water usage. I would not be surprised to see more communities feature reservoirs or larger bodies of water as design elements to provide better fire protection. This becomes a balance between competing interests when the more fire prone states also have potential drought issues.”
While projects are unique and should be evaluated at an individual level, these developers believe that, in general, housing can be built in higher risk fire zones.
Silverwood has a project in the high desert area of southern California, a high fire risk area, but the developer continued to build there because the area does not have significant fuels nearby.
With wildfires, so much is impacted at the local level. Entire economies and markets can be instantly destroyed. Local leaders must be thinking about and looking at risk on a regular basis to adjust resources, protect residents and the economy.
Local governments should work with developers on comprehensive, area-wide fuel modification efforts, said Ohanian. He suggests setting up community financing districts to manage fire risk, and looking at the existing housing stock to identify ways to bring older areas into compliance with new standards.
Community Strengthens Wildfire Resiliency
Many leaders in the space are discovering that the true power of wildfire resiliency is in community, not in a single home.
This is the thinking that national builder KB Home adopted to develop the country’s first new home community that meets wildfire resilience standards created by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).
“There are innovations in the space, such as using ignition-resistant materials, hardened ventilation systems, and underground utilities is encouraging,” said Efosa. “What’s missing in most projects is community-scale coordination. One fire-resistant home doesn’t prevent destruction if the entire neighborhood lacks defensible space or if roads are too narrow for first responders. Scalable resilience depends on systems thinking.”
In 2023, IBHS launched the Wildfire Prepared Home program and then worked with KB Home to advance that to the community scale at home builder’s Dixon Trail community in Escondido, California that will have 64 homes when completed.
“Wildfire risk happens at the parcel level and then the adjoining properties,” said Roy Wright, president and CEO at IBHS. “If you mitigate one home, you can be OK in a flood, but that isn’t the case with wildfires.”
So, his organization used its testing labs to focus on neighborhood-level mitigation, exploring all possible fire pathways. The testing resulted in understanding the impact of measures such as all metal fencing instead of wood or vinyl, and expanding the spacing of homes to be 10 feet apart.
More of what IBHS found was interesting.
“When we mitigate at a community level, we get the collective action of all 64 homes, and when that happens, we get a passive mitigation strategy,” Wright said. “The community becomes a firebreak that will serve not just that neighborhood, but the neighbors next door that built 40 to 50 years ago and that don’t meet these standards.”
When IBHS developed the prepared home standard, it was just step one to the new neighborhood standard. While KB’s Dixon community is the first in the country, IBHS is pursuing this standard with another 10 neighborhoods in California this year.
“Newly developed housing communities are part of a solution rather than a problem,” said Jacob Atalla, the vice president of innovation and sustainability at KB Home. “Many of the new communities have underground utilities. Landscaping is key, including fuel modification zones where needed. Around development, nature has been left untouched for a long time, so it has to be thinned out without impacting the biodiversity.”
The individual homes in the community are built to meet Chapter 7A of the California Building Code on “materials and construction methods for exterior wildfire exposure,” which includes a Class A roof, enclosed eaves, the right ventilation, noncombustible cladding.
Meeting all of these inputs, codes, and certifications, impacts the value of the properties, before and after a wildfire.
“Even if the build is hardened against fire, surrounding parcels and community vulnerability can drive down property values quickly after an event,” Efosa said. “Resilience isn’t just about fire-resistant siding. We’re looking at home spacing, ingress/egress design for evacuation, hardened utilities, and neighborhood-level fire mitigation strategies. Communities that conduct prescribed burns or maintain defensible space at scale signal more than just cosmetic safety—they’re thinking operationally, not just optically.”
Wildfire Resiliency Future Forward
Buyers are increasingly aware of fire risk, but most of these experts believe that the buyers are not shying away from homes in fire risk zones when they are educated about the risk and the measures in place to reduce it.
At the same time, Efosa says that buyers are more cautious than they were five years ago.
“We’ve seen deals fall through based on projected insurance premiums alone,” he recalled. “Even in so-called “resilient” builds, if buyers perceive that risk has just been shifted rather than mitigated, they hesitate. What moves the needle is transparency—when buyers see real mitigation work backed by data, not just marketing, they’re more likely to commit.”
Building codes are helping and players like KB Home are pushing them forward. Atalla says that KB Home starts thinking about wildfire resilience during the land acquisition process. The company also works with the state government to address changing fire zone maps.
“The Chapter 7 construction standards in the California state building code have helped rot harden homes and reduce fire risk,” said Ohanian. “Most of the builders I work with are starting to adopt these requirements as standard operating procedure given the heightened fire concerns in the state. Builder willingness to do this is the most promising thing I have seen recently.”
And the insurance industry also has to pay attention, potentially in a way that will lower premiums so more people can afford homes along with the insurance to protect them.
“The California insurance market has a lot of turbulence right now, unrelated to wildfire,” said IBHS’s Wright. “Wildfire mitigation on the homes in this neighborhood is exactly what the insurance companies are looking at to lower risk. The current actions built into these homes have to be given a price consideration when they are pricing their products. Can’t give a hard fast number, but these actions require a price consideration. I’m confident this is what they are looking to see. It is clearly in an area that has high wildfire risk.”
KB Home specifically has pencils sharpened to drive down costs, while still continuing innovation.
“We’re still in research and development mode–we just finished 7 homes but have 64 to complete,” Atalla said. “We want to find alternative glass for windows, and the same for fencing. We are continuing to learn to develop a good set of guidelines that can be applied where needed.”
He said there is no fixed number for the projections on the cost of the homes at Dixon Trail, but KB continues to find ways to reduce the cost, and also change the risk cost to reduce premiums for homeowners.
Wildfire resiliency is evolving and will be able to better protect people, to future proof economies, and to provide much needed housing supply in areas that maybe didn’t previously seem like options.
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