Fire Hardening Follow up: Fact & Fiction Part 2 | Hour 1

We just finished up an hour of coverage, special coverage of Governor Gavin Newsom's town hall in relation to the LA wildfires, and so we're starting an hour late, but we're running till noon today as always, and I am glad that you are with us. I want to jump right in because I originally had three hours worth of a very important information for you about fire hardening your home that I now have two hours to cover. So

let me just jump right in. Okay, last week I spent both episodes of our show talking about fire, and it's rare that I would return again to the same topic two weeks in a row. But I am, and I'm sure you can understand why that is the case. I know that if you live in southern California, fire coverage is just about all you have seen and heard for twenty four to seven, for days and days now it appears at present, and let's hope that this is true, that the worst of the Eton and the Palisades fires

are behind us. Eaten is now at eighty one percent containment, Palisades at fifty two. That's good news. It's not over, but it's good news. We have some wind events coming and let's hope that those don't change those numbers in

any way. But the point is, if you've not been directly impacted by either fire, which despite this unprecedented devastation, is true for most Southern California residents, simply because this is such a large region, or if you live outside of SoCal and listen to the show as so many people do, or if you're just exhausted, you might be ready and hoping to talk about something else. And I feel you on that, but I think you and I need to have at least one more very important conversation

before we move on from this. There's a lot of talk now about what to do to get a home ready for the next wildfire event. Fire hardening is what it is referred to, as I talked about it last week, and we are revisiting that topic solely this week. And

here's the reason why. In this last week, it has become very apparent to me that there is a lot of myth, misinformation, I'm being kind here, misunderstanding, fear, and general ignorance about how fire threatens our homes, and all across social media and traditional media, we're now seeing all sorts of so called solutions from DIY ideas about that guy who rigged sprinklers on his roof or got his own water tank, to a slew of so called fire

protection companies that have sprung up virtually overnight in southern California and will happily install their so called safety systems. At worst, some of these ideas are scams at best, many, if not many of most of these ideas are well meaning, as they may be, but rooted in ignorance and deeply misguided. And nearly all of them are very costly costly to implement, and potentially even more costly when a fire does threaten your home after you've installed one and they failed to

do what they have promised to do. I do not want that to happen to you. I don't want you to spend one more dollar on fire hardening your home then you reasonably need to. But also let me be really clear, I want all of you, all you, no matter where you live, to invest more toward fire hardening your home than you already have. The way to do that is to do what I do every week, which is to help you, as I often say, better understand

that place where you live. We need to talk rationally about fire and what your home's vulnerabilities to it really are in real time as fires are actually happening. It might surprise you what that is and what it isn't It will definitely inform you. I hope it equips and encourages you to take the right steps. So again, let me be very clear. If you live in southern California, you need to know that the greatest risk of disaster

striking your home is fire, no, not earthquakes. Statistically, by far, the greatest risk of disaster striking your home in Southern California is fire. Earthquakes come in second, and the Greater Los Angeles area is in fact the highest fire risk region in the country. But also let's remember, fire happens everywhere. What town anywhere in America does not have a fire

department it's not just about wildfires. So if you live far enough away from LA or any open space, then if you think, hey, no worries, that's not good thinking. We're having this conversation now because of the LA wildfires. But what we're about to talk about is for everyone who is listening to my voice right now. Okay, so I urge you to stay with me. Listen carefully. We're going to get some news and then we'll begin. You are listening to Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.

dedicated to the themes surrounding the LA wildfires and homes today. Though, I have a very very singular goal, and that is to help you assess how a fire will most likely interact with your home so you can take the most affordable and most effective steps to protect it aka what's known as fire hardening. Okay, And I'm going to try and do this by doing these three things. Number one, explaining exactly what parts of your home are truly vulnerable

to what and when? Okay. Number two to address the vulnerabilities most effectively, and then three to direct you to the resource verses that I recommend to get all of this stuff done. Okay. And then along the way, as a sidebar on this, we're going to be hopefully just by the process of doing it right, debunking fallacies and

fantasies about what's going to help. There's already a lot of myths and fear based gimmicks out there that, in my opinion and in the opinion of just about every professional fire personnel that I have talked to, these things are are set up mostly to waste your time and

your money while not making you significantly safer. Now, I'm not going to be getting down on any one particular thing, nor am I going to tell you that if you can afford it, that you you know, shouldn't put layer upon layer upon layer of other things fire hardening for your home. But here's what I know. If if we immediately jump to one of two extremes, one being you know what, I don't live anywhere near these wildfires. I'm good. Okay.

That's a big mistake. And the other big mistake is to imply from media coverage that we've seen, because it's quite sensational, that everybody should get a ten thousand gallon reservoir in their backyard and have a personal fire hydrant installed to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then guess what's going to happen. None of you are going to think seriously about fire hardening your home. Okay, Only the wealthiest among us are going to make any efforts.

That's a problem too. The fact of the matter is everybody can afford to fire harden their home adequately. Nothing is a silver bullet, nothing nothing. Nature has its way. Right at the end of the day, things happen that you can take every imaginable preventative measure against and still suffer loss. But how reasonably and effectively and wisely can we actually hedge our bets. That's what we're talking about today.

Lesson number one is this fire hardening should always, in my opinion, be separated into two phases of a fire's approach that we prepare for in very different ways. All right, two phases. There is number one, when the fire is near near you. Number two is when the flames are here. Now, why do I make that distinction. I make that distinction very simply because your home is at risk when the fire is near. In fact, statistically, your home igniting is

at highest risk when the fire is near. And yet most people when they think of fire hardening their home, and this is not irrelevant by any means, but most people prepare for when the flames are here. Okay, preparing your home for when the flames are here is not enough. It is not enough by far. And so I want you to get this into your brain. Less than one. Fire hardening separated into two phases, when the fire is near, when the flames are here, lesson two. Let's talk about

when the fire is near, the first and biggest threat. Okay, Now you talk to all sorts of people. You can watch all sorts of TikTok. I guess you can watch TikTok videos again for the moment you can talk to, you can watch all sorts of videos. You can see all sorts of social media stuff talking about oh, we do this, we do that, look at this, look at that.

If you actually and here's my suggestion, if you're online looking for videos about how to fire harden your home, make sure the person who is staring at you is you know, has a badge on all right, has a badge and actually comes from works in you know, fire protection services, in the sense that they actually are firefighters, captains, commanders, experience firefighters. They will tell you what they know to be true. Okay, everybody else, you know, it's hit and

miss at best. So the first and biggest threat, the first and biggest mistake that most homeowners make in their fire hardening thoughts is focusing solely on face two when the flames are here. Why is that a mistake, Because the first and biggest threat embers. Embers, not forty foot walls of flame burning at fifteen hundred degrees. If that happens and is near your home, you know what, we

are all rolling the dice at that point, right. But the thing you have the biggest control over, the thing that is most affordable for you, and the thing that is repeatedly proves out the statistics ninety percent of the homes that burn in a wildfire event ignite before the fire line arrives at the house. And you wonder how these things get out of control so quickly, Okay, even you know, in a windstorm like we've just experienced in the last few weeks, it's because the fire line is

out there. It's out there in the in the area right, it's in the hillside, it's and the next thing, you know, before anybody knows it or realizes it, a house one block in is on fire, and then a house two blocks over is on The fire is not here yet, or we so we think, But the fire has arrived in the form of embers, those tiny little golden sparks

that are flying through the air. Those embers floating through the air are the greatest threat to your home when any kind of fire erupt any kind of fire, by the way, erupts anywhere within miles of you, period, because they can they they a single ember itself, we know, can travel two miles on the wind and still be

an effective source of ignition. And I say any kind of fire, and this is why I want everybody listening to me, because it isn't just the wildfires burning like, I don't live anywhere near you know, I live in Torrents. I don't live anywhere near an open space. Well, what if your neighbors, you know, smoking in bed two houses down from you or on the next block, and their house catches on fire. When that house starts spitting embers,

you are at risk. Okay. When the car fire that happens over on the freeway for some reason ignites some palm fronds and starts throwing embers in the wind, you are at risk. I'm not trying to make anybody panic, just the opposite. I just want to be reasonable to you. That fire carries its first and major threat to your home on the breeze via embers. Okay, Now take a moment to understand the implications of this statistic. Ninety percent of homes that burn in a wildfire event ignite before

the fire arrives. Am I saying that if the homes in the Palisades and Altadena had been ember resistant, and forget about fireproof for the moment, just ember resistant. Am I saying that those fires would have likely moved somewhere in the area of maybe ninety percent slower, and those neighborhoods may have suffered ninety percent less damage, And yeah,

that's exactly what I'm saying. Okay, likely because the speed at which a fire moves through an open brush area is almost entirely dependent upon the fuel that's available to it and the wind. But the speed at which a fire moves through a structured neighborhood area is almost entirely dependent on on how vulnerable those structures are to the front of the fire, which is not the flames but the ember's blowing. Okay, let's take a look at your home.

What parts are ember vulnerable? Okay? Defensible space that is, you know, and normally the number gets thrown out as one hundred feet, but let's face it, the reality is most homes have little five foot sideyards and you can't control what's on the other side of that five foot wall. But the point is this, get the junk away from your house, the stuff that can burn, Get it away

from your house. That is ember ignitable and gutters, not the gutters themselves, but all the dry leaves sitting in your neglected gutters are vulnerable atticts and crawl spaces via the vents that keep those things by code ventilated. These are the major threats. Now, notice I did not say your exterior walls, or your windows, or your roof these are or should be Class A fire rated surfaces. They are not necessarily vulnerable to embers. Okay, not in the

way that exposed wood and eves and at events. Are all right now to talk more about this, We're gonna have my special guest on, Kelly berkampas who is the co founder and vice president of brand guard Vents, my number one recommendation for your ember proofens, especially if you live here in southern California. I'm going to have her on next, but first let's hear some news and then we will continue.

I'm just trying to underscore the importance of the topic, and that is this may be one of the most, if not the most important conversation that you and I are going to have this year in regards to just

the big things in life. And what we were just talking about before the break was the lesson, this critical lesson that I need every homeowner everywhere, but especially living here in southern California to understand, and that is when it comes to fire hardening a home, the most important thing that you must do first before worrying about anything else,

is to get your home emberproofed. We'll talk about flame proofing if that's even possible, on what level that's next, But emberproofing your home is critical because, to repeat this critically important statistic, ninety percent of the homes that burn in a wildfire event ignite before the fire line actually arrives at the house. Was that true of the Palisades, Yes it was. Was it true of Alta Dina and the Eaten Fire, Yes, it's true of every fire. Embers

come first. They are the first and greatest enemy to your home being threatened in a fire. Now, to help me further deep dive into that, I have a very very special guest on the phone line, Kelly berkampas co founder and Vice president of brand Guard Events. Brand Guard is unashamingly my number one recommendation for your Ember proof events. If you live here in Southern California or anywhere, just know that. And Kelly, are you on the line with me?

But yeah, so the idea the company was founded by a Southern California firefighter named Brent and he's actually still a firefighter in Orange County, and he was on a fire back in two thousand and three called the Old Fire. It was a very distructive fire in San Bernardino. They lost twenty four homes, I'm sorry, five hundred homes in twenty four hours. And his engine was one of the

first to respond. And what they noticed was they were driving street after street after street, unable to save these homes because the attics were already on fire. And I think it's public knowledge that if the attic is already on fire, there's not much the firemen can do, especially in a time of chaos like what happens during a wildfire. They have to keep driving and they're going to look for a home that actually has a chance of being

saved once they pull up. And so he started wondering why these attics were all on fire, and so he was observing while they were driving the embers, amount of embers that were getting blown directly into the ad events, and he realized that that was how they were catching fire so quickly, because they cannot compete with the speed and the amounts of embers that are flying during these wildfires.

And so he came away from that fire, just feeling completely frustrated and you know, devastated at the loss and the lack of being able to do anything about it while he was there, and so he went on a mission to try to find a solution that homeowners could put in their homes to prevent that from ever happening again.

And so when I heard about his idea, of course I was, you know, very passionate, excited about it from the start, and you know, we started our journey from that point on of creating the design, getting it approved, getting it tested. We had a lot of help from industry people. California has enacted their building codes in two thousand and eight specifically you know, for ember resistant events and many other things as well. But yeah, it is a thing for new construction in the wildfire zones, and

we're just trying to get the word out. Also, do the millions of homes that are already existing and already built to get retrofitted with vents as well?

horizontal and vertical. Brand Guard Events is both horizontal and vertical position because vents are installed in many ways on the home. And then also the mber test as well.

We're talking about that today. In fact, right now, we're talking about one of the most if not the most important first conversation, and that is ember proofing your home where ninety percent of homes ignite before the fire ever arrives. And to do that, I've got online with me Kelly berkampas co founder and vice president of Brand Guard vents. Brand Guard has been a vent company that I've been recommending to you four years. Now, what's different today, I'll

tell you what's different. You know, because of this recent disaster, I probably have your attention a little bit more. So I'm taking advantage of it in order to get you serious about this. Kelly's on the line with me. Kelly, right before the break, I am told you that I was going to ask you a question. You guys, brand Guard, do you have clients in the palis a and if so, how did those houses fare?

you know, you just can't. Really it's really hard to see success stories, you know, without them, And so as I've been going and reaching out and looking things up on the databases, it's been devastating to see the homes that you know, did not make it. However, you know, it is a bright spot to see the success stories. I mean, we have homes that every other home on the shot burned except for homes that had our events in them. We've had a whole hoa community, a townhome

community that survived when things around it burned down. And so the stories just kind of go on and on and on, and you know it, really, after doing this for so long, it just furthers me even more to just keep continuing down the path of education for the importance events like ours, they really make a difference, not just in lab but if they're going to have a real life test. I mean, this fire, I don't know that we'll ever see a situation worse than this.

also flames and radiant heat. And so if you were to take, for example, like a screen from a patio door, screen from a window, which is essentially what the fine mesh is. So you put a screen, lay it horizontal, put a fire underneath it, put your hand on the back side of that screen. Your hand is going to burn. There is no way that a screen can stop direct flame and radiant heat from coming through that screen. Whereas vents that are listed on how fire, especially when they

have both orientations listed. That's really critical to see that you have the horizontal and the vertical because vents are installed in both ways. And so the reason that's important being is that insulation which is right inside your attic, and would which is also right inside your attic, they can ignite simply from radiant heat alone. You don't even need to have the flame touching. They can ignite simply from radiant heat at temperatures of I think wood is

three hundred and ninety degrees fahrenheit. Insulation is something like four hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit. And so that's why it's super important for people to understand find mesh can be an option if that is your absolutely only option. But again, you just need to understand the protection you're not getting and then ask yourself, you know, what is the trade off? What is worth it?

it grows. Your vents are covered in an into messent coding, which means that when there is not extreme heat up against them, they're just sitting there like a normal vent, but they are knocking down, baffling down, and not permitting embers to blow through. But when and I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but I only have you for this segment here, when the fire line actually gets to the house, if there is fire, like you were just saying, flame right on the other side of that wall,

something happens to your vents. That again, it does not happen to fine screen meshure or any standard vent. And that is and correct me if I'm wrong. At a certain temperature, I want to say, well, you tell me the temperature, but at a certain temperature that represents an imminent heat threat, the coating on your vent bubbles out and seals the vent, closes it off so that a flame doesn't even have the opportunity of making its way in.

What you do, you know offhand what the temperature is that that coating reacts that way.

the same amount. It's going to expand in a split second when that extreme heat and extreme flames approach the vent, it will expand in a split second. Filling up, feeling off the vent, and it's going to work the same whether it's day one that it was installed, or day fifty or sixty, or year fifty or sixty. So that's a huge benefit of that material that's tucked inside.