KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. In our continuing topical coverage of the southern California wildfires, we have been discussing steps toward fire hardening your home. I do a fire hardening show every single year, right before quote unquote fire season, which is like, you know, nine
out of twelve months these days. But in the spirit of dealing with and helping you with what is happening right now, you know, we've pushed aside other scheduled topics and we're covering this again for you. This is an overview. If you want more in depth and go back into the podcast archives and simply find the Fire Hardening Show
and you'll see a full dedication. After we're done with fire hardening, I want to move on to what comes next, but there are some very specific and interesting questions that are coming.
Up a result of this. Let's lose our music.
Bed there if you can, Homer, thanks. There are some specific questions coming up this A lot of our callers are asking these kinds of questions. In fact, I just had some clients who live in Malibu text me an interesting story that was posted about what about kind of
heroic efforts to protect our homes? Everything from fire sprinklers to external field sprinklers, to personal water reservoirs, to paying an exorbitant amount of money to have a personal fire hydrant on your own property for the protection of your home?
How effective are these? Are they?
Good ideas? This kind of stuff I want to take. I know I was going to talk about fire gel and I'm going to, but I have on the line with me while he's available, somebody that I want to have this conversation with, a very very dear friend of mine. Also somebody who has been involved with wildfires for countless years. Well not countless, I mean he's not ancient, but he is a good friend countless years. John White, John, are you there, buddy?
Good morning. It was twenty eight and a half years and I am now retired.
Okay, all right, so we did count them, I said, countless, but you just counted them, So that's good. John is a very very dear friend. He is a client, a design client as well. But our friendship just continues as most of our clients do. John is one of those guys who called me and said, hey, how you doing, Are you guys safe? Do you need to come out here? Do you need to you know what? Do you need? I'm here for you. He's just one of those people.
But most importantly in terms of this conversation, instead of me doing this whole CV of yours, can you tell everybody, John, you know what you've been working on for the last twenty eight years that you're now just literally recently retired from.
Yeah, for the last twenty eight years. Since nineteen ninety six, I've been or was a heavy equipment operator for the State Fire Department, which is a fancy way of saying that I took a bulldozer and scratched line to bear mineral soil around vegetation fires.
And that's for CAL fire.
That's correct, CAL fire.
So John has literally been in the thick of it on one of those bulldozers when it's you know, all hell is breaking loose literally around John. I wanted to talk to you about a very very specific thing. We've got some calls, We've had questions. I've had emails about what about the idea of getting big fire hoses for my house and a personal fire hydrant for my house and a personal reservoir for my house with a backup pump and a generator, and or making a deal with
the water company and tapping into lines. What about you know, water dropping water like a water curtain off the edge of my home. What about fire sprinklers on the top of my roof or on the perimeter of my property. The thing that concerns me the most. You know, we can just talk about anything that comes to mind in those terms. But here here's my initial thought that I want you to respond to. I'm a bit concerned about manually operated systems when it comes to this. I really
don't have a problem if the water. If you have the money and you want to put in a ten thousand goll and buried water tank somewhere on your property and have your own dedicated pump to it that automatically or when you turn it on, will feed perimeter sprinklers that are basically kind of just moistening and dampening the
perimeter of your house. Hey, go for it. Okay, you're not drawing from the municipal water supply at that point, you're not taking away from firefighters who are in the neighborhood. And you turn them on and leave My concern is, as I was just reading in this article here of a home in Malibu where the guy's got a personal fire hydrant, he paid an amazing amount of money to tap into the actual water supply, and he's got firefighting clothes,
and he plans on staying and protecting his house. I get concerned about that because my experience has been that there is no one hundred percent bullet proof defense of a home. And what if somebody is encouraged to stay home and fight a fire against their house with a hose and they miss their window of evacuation and it's simply not going to happen. The hose, no matter how large, is simply not going to protect the house. Is that realistic?
Is that a stupid concern on my part? Or am I making sense?
Well?
I guess first and foremost, it's a question that I often pose back at people, including some of our own people, is do you have enough? And the response I usually get from that is people look at me and say do I have enough? What? And it's like, do you have enough water? Do you have enough time? Do you have enough power? Manpower? Do you have enough equipment tapping
into say a personal fire hydrant. That's not a bad idea, and none of these ideas are bad ideas, but you have to truly evaluate is it going to be effective cost effective when it's needed. You know, in this case, such as what happened or what's happened on the Palisades fire is too many engines, too many people asking for water, the system is not designed to handle that. It's not economically feasible for them to design a system like that.
So you might spend a great deal of money for your own personal fire hydrant, but is there going to be water in it when the next Palisades fire happens. Chances are no. You know, when you've got hundreds, if not thousands of hydrants open, well probably hundreds, maybe not thousands. When you have hundreds of hydrants open, it's going to the system is quickly going to run out of water.
And if that's to be expected, like say, you can't you can't build a system big enough to handle a conflagration that occurred in the Palisades or the Eden Tire. So you know, little hydrid, Yeah, you can do it. And for the five or ten acre fire that's near your home, it might not be a bad idea. But when it's a wind driven fire like the Palisades fire, it's really not going to buy you anything.
I got you, all right, John, Can you hold that thought.
I'm just they're tapping on my shoulder because we've got to go to break. Can you hang on with me for one more segment?
Bun?
Absolutely?
Okay, all right, great, we're going to pick this right up right after we get the latest news.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Here with you on this smoky Sunday morning, January twelfth, twenty twenty five, as the Los Angeles Greater Los Angeles area wildfires continue to burn, even though we are making some progress, and let's hope that progress holds as the
winds pick back up again. But we are talking about fire hardening your home and then transitioning to what comes next and right now, because of a few questions that I get a lot and and a lot that have just streamed in this morning regarding what I would call kind of extreme measures when it comes to getting a home ready or preparing for a possible wildfire incursion on your home, I've got on the line a very dear friend of mine, and they just recently retired from Cowfire
Commander John White, John, you're still with me, bud.
Yes, I am. It's heavy fire equipment operator, not commander.
Oh well, okay, fine, that's fine.
Heavy people go ahead. I appreciate that. I totally appreciate that. My bad, my bad John literally is one of the guys, or was one of the guys on those bulldozers that you see being drawn into fire areas during wildfires. And specifically, I mean to kind of oversimplify the process, you know, clearing areas of ground down to bare soil, so that there is so these creating these swaths of non ignitable areas in order to create lines to stop the fire, to hold the fire, defensible zones and so on and
so forth. I thought John would be a great person, and he was because I love how you said in response to my question about what about all of these extreme measures, and your response was basically, well that you normally ask people are you going to have enough? And the question of enough, do you have enough manpower? Do you have enough water?
Do you you know? And will you have it? On the day?
And I think where right where I had to cut you off as we were going to break. But we're back now to address it. You had said that that, okay, your own personal fire hydrant, if there's a multi acre fire nearby, maybe that's a great idea. But in a you know, a perfect storm condition like the Palisades fire, who knows whether there's even going to be pressure in
that system, because you know Palisades. That was one of the issues is that there were such draw such demand from so many companies fighting so many facets of the fire. Plus in addition, the house is being burned, pipes breaking open and losing water in that direction, that pressure was low, and pressure was an issue. And so it's a question of is it a bad idea. No, I guess it's not a bad idea. Is it going to pay off
for you? If it's a perfect storm scenario, that's that's debatable. Now, if you have your own personal reservoir and a pump driven by your own generator system and you're not relying on the municipal water pressure supply, maybe that's a better scenario. That's also a much more expensive scenario. And again the question for me comes down to, all, right, let's say
somebody has that system. John shouldn't that be ideally kind of an automated system where you set it and walk as opposed to And I'm responding to some clients of ours who sent us an article about a home in Malibu homeowner in Malibu who's literally he has taken a little bit of fire training apparently, and he's got a full on, you know, fire department fire suit, and he's planning on staying put the next time flames are approaching
his house. And I wonder if you know, when you've got multiple individuals with all of the equipment necessary who are super trained, I mean career trained individuals to fight fires, attacking fire lines, and there's an evacuation order for your neighborhood, is it smart or stupid to stay home as the loan firefighter of your home when you're not even a firefighter missed the evacuation window and expect that the system that you've paid so much money for is somehow going to save your house.
Well, it's certainly a can of worms. First and foremost. I would be remiss if I didn't suggest to everybody that the first line of defense is defensible space, a hundred foot clearing around your structure of highly flammable material is going to be the first line of defense that
has the best opportunity to save your structure. Secondly, I would only go as far as to point out what happened during the Esperanza fire in the Banning Pass when a full crew of professional trained for service firefighters lost their lives because they were trying to stay and defend a structure. If it can happen to professional trained, highly trained firefighters, you can only imagine that somebody that's taking a couple online courses is not going to be prepared
to handle it. The other thing is, again it goes back to do you have enough of anything? And do you have enough time? Having your own ten thousand gallons of water tank and a sprinkler system or any sort
of system to utilize that is not a bad idea. Again, though, timing is going to be everything, because you're going to have to sit down and figure out how many gallons per minute your system is using and how long that ten thousand gallons would last, and then time it perfectly so that the flame front reaches your house just before, or excuse me, just after your fire suppression system kicks in.
Because if you start your system at eight o'clock and it's only good for one hundred and ten minutes, and the fire doesn't reach you until ten o'clock, chances are you've wasted your ten thousand gallons of water. So there's there's so many variables. It's it's really not a good practice, especially in the conflagration like the Paradise Fire, to to try to stay behind and save your house. And unless you really feel confident in your skills and your timing,
it's it's a very risky thing to do. And at the end of the day, all these things are just stuff. They're you know, yes, there they are lifetimes and memories and I get that, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen lifetimes of memories burnt to the ground. But at the end of the day, you're alive to realize that it's just stuff.
M I love how you put that, not that not just that it's just stuff. But at the end of the day, if you are alive to suffer the loss of your stuff, you're ahead of the game. It is better to be alive to have and feel the loss of your stuff than to not be alive by the time the fire is done. And I think your message to everybody on as they start to play. The most valuable thing your perspective has given us this morning, John by Far, is these these ideas of like do you
have enough? Do you have enough time? How much water do you have on hand? When do you start your system? Because undoubtedly, undoubtedly, unless you're you've got enough water to run, let's say your automated sprinkler system for you know, twenty four hours plus, undoubtedly an evacuation order is coming, and ideally you're getting out of there hopefully, you know, not just ten minutes before the fire arrives. Hopefully you're getting out of there well before the potential of the fire
arriving at your home. And like you said, ten thousand gallons sounds great, but if it's all used up, you know, two hours before the fire arrives, then then the system has done nothing in terms of helping you out. John, I'm not going to keep you any longer, my friend.
I absolutely appreciate and love your perspective on this. It has helped a lot of people just kind of ground themselves insanity when it comes to this, because these are terrifying experiences, but they're not the kind of thing that we and they tempt us to go to extremes, but extremes are what they are, and when we find ourselves literally standing in the extreme, it's an entirely different experience
than just thinking and planning for it. And John, I appreciate you, appreciate all you've done and all you continue to do, and thanks for being with me on the show.
Give me a call any time, all right, but we'll.
Talk soon, all right. When we return.
I will talk to you about something you can do that is proven to be effective in many, many instances. Is it a silver bullet, No, but proven statistically to be effective before you evacuate, Something that if you have it on hand, you will likely have time to deploy before you leave and it could make a big difference. And that is some form of fire gel for your home. We'll talk about that right after.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
You are Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper. Thanks for joining us on the program today. I hope you are safe and sound wherever you are listening to my voice this morning, especially if you are here in southern California and dealing with or anywhere near or ongoing wildfires
that are continuing to burn. It looks like we're making some progress on them, some significant progress on all of the firefronts, but it's not over, and with the winds kicking back up, there is still plenty of concern out there and plenty of devastation left in the path. We're going to be talking about how we restart after an event like this, any natural disaster, but it's specifically in
our case, these fires. But right now I want to finish talking about just a brief overview of fire hardening your home, and then we're gonna see if we can take some calls to review amber proof vents for your attic or if you've got to remodel in your future, consider remodeling your attic into a conditioned attic space where
no vents are required. If it is a last minute thing and you are facing evacuation or evacuation warnings for your area and you don't have proof vents obviously you can't get them now, then consider simply taping off your vents, the vents that you can reach. Anything you can get too safely tape off those vents, duct tape masking tape whatever the case may be. You're like, that stuff's not going to hold up to a fire once it's burning at the base of my wall.
No it's not.
But I'm not talking about the fire arriving at your house. I'm talking about stopping tiny little embers from entering into your attic. So if all else fails before an evacuation, tape off those vents. It's not going to hurt anything inside the house for a couple three days to have the attic vents taped up. Okay, tape off the vents for your house before you leave. Fire Rated windows obviously it's code under new construction and major remodels, but also
voluntarily you can change those out for your home. If that's not in your budget, then fire rated window film that will hold the glass in place even if it shatters because of the heat of the flame. We talked about defensible space with my guest and good buddy John White from cow Fire. Defensible space, no question, the best deterrent that you can use for the fire line actually approaching your home, and that is one hundred feet away from your house. Clear out and eliminate as much flammable
stuff as possible and especially right before you leave. Get junk away from your house, Get stuff away from leaning up against the walls, stuff that is that is tucked up underneath your eaves, get it away, Get it as far away from the house as possible. And with John White, as you heard over the last couple of seconds, I was talking about more extreme measures. Okay, Now, one thing I should say when I say fire sprinklers in this situation,
I'm not talking about in house fire sprinklers. Those are always, always, always a great idea, okay, in home fire suppress systems. They are not that expensive to retrofit into a home if it is a concern of yours, and it would be wise to include those in any remodel budget, major remodels, especially new construction. They are required throughout the state of California now, no matter what the size of your house is,
and statistically they save lives almost always and save property usually. Okay, But the fire sprinklers that I was talking about are ideas about field sprinklers, private personal hydrants, reservoirs, and so on. And you heard John tell us that at the end of the day, it's a question of how effective and how efficient those things are going to be and the timing of it. Do you have the time, do you have the resources, will you have the water pressure? And at the end of the day. The point is this,
if an evacuation order comes for your home, evacuate. Don't be foolish and stay home and pretend to be a trained fire fighter with a garden hose.
Do not do that.
Get out and move on because it is as John put it so well, it's just stuff. Better to survive and feel the loss than for you not to survive the fire and be the loss. So that is the fire hardening of your home. In a nutshell, the overall list, I'm going to add one thing to it, and this isn't really fire hardening. Well, I back up, I'm getting ahead of myself. I promised before the break that the last item on the list. Forgive me for getting ahead
of myself. Here something that has been proven effective in many, many circumstances, many instances. Fire gel. Now you've heard Dean say fire gel. What is this suff fire gel stuff? Fire gel is very simply this. It is a gelatinous
substance that kind of gets foamy up. It comes in you know, one gallon and five gallon the canisters, it can hook onto a garden hose, much like like your Miracle Grow fertilizer hooks onto your garden hose when you spray it across your shrubs to fertilize them, you know, So you run water through your hose, it mixes with the gel and then becomes a sprayer and a distribution nozzle for the gel. The fire gel is a fire retardant gel and it clings to surfaces. Now again, is
this a silver bullet that's going to absolutely save your house? No, there is no such thing. But could this potentially help? Absolutely? And statistically it has proven to do so. And the reason I like it is because number One, you can store this stuff indefinitely. It's not a risk to you. It's literally the very definition of non flammable. You can store it long term. Number Two, you can disperse it
very quickly. So if you're in a an evacuation warning area, like the order to go has not come yet but it's likely to come, then you can be prepped to do this. And John talked about timing right, you can be prepped to do this as the very last thing you do before you leave. It does not take a lot of time to do it. And the nice thing about fire gel is that it clings to surfaces and will hold on under most conditions for at least twenty four and as often as as much as forty eight hours. Okay,
so it will hold. You can spray down what your windows, your house, the eaves, the edge of the roof, yes, patio furniture, yes, trees and shrubs, it's non toxic to them. Trees and shrubs that are susceptible in the backyard. Yes, plant materials that are too close to the house.
Yes.
You can get enough of this stuff that you can spray it down now. Typically the cost is for the average size home, right, and you'll have to evaluate this, and they'll help you evaluate it. For the average size home, you're looking at about seven hundred dollars or so investment to have this stored away. Larger homes, more, smaller homes, maybe a little less. I'd rather have more on hand than less, for sure. But the nice thing about fire
gel is that you can do that. If the fire line approaches your home, it may make all the difference, may make all the difference. And after the fire, when you return to your home that is still standing, you can then take out the garden hose and spray it off everything. You can just rinse everything down and life at that point will return to normal. That is the advantage of fire jail. Now, is there more than one
out there? Yes, the company that I've been very impressed with, very proud of, and have recommended on multiple occasions is Barricade two. That's the product, Barricade two. It may even be Barricade three. Now fire Gel. You can find that at firegel dot com. And when you speak with him or interact with him, please let them know that I sent you and headed you in that direction. You can find out everything you need to know about fire gel
at firegel dot com. And right now, I believe you will find on the landing page of that website a special note to southern California residents as to exactly where what West Coast supplier you can talk to that they have prepared to get you fire gail materials as quickly as possible. Okay, firejail dot com. So that is the the end of my short list of fire hardening your home. Those are the basics not only long term, but to intermediate and well. If you just got to get out.
You can do a couple of things before you leave to maybe help, but most importantly you get out. Okay, when we come back, let's take a couple of calls, and then we'll talk a little bit about emergency power supply, something that has touched way more people than just the fire in Southern California, Emergency power supply during windstorm events like we've had, and how that affects your preparedness. And then we'll move on to how do we rebuild all
of this? Still coming up? Go know where your Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Thanks for joining us on the program today.
We are continuing kfi's coverage of the Southern California Greater Los Angeles area wildfires and up to date information for you from the twenty four hour KFI news Room and I have been discussing fire hardening your home preparations for that, We're going to transition to how do you rebuild when an entire neighborhood is gone? And what are the steps that everybody should be taking if you've been evacuated, if you've lost your home, what to expect next, and what
challenges lie ahead. We'll be dealing with that next. But right now I've been neglecting the phones because I'm just trying to get as much of this information out and I want to take a couple of calls if we can. So let's talk to Let's talk to Nate. Hey, Nate, welcome home.
Yeah, how are you doing?
Dan?
I'm good? How can I help you? Bud?
I'm good. First off, I'd like to say that what you said about the ambers and get into your event, that's so true. That will happen to me and Aldadina fires. My neighbors called me at work and told me seeing the vent start to smoke. So that's really really that's really really true. But anyway, my question is the ruse. I'll ask you a question about the RUSS. Is anything we can do it with the roof, like any like retard in one resistance one speed that I should look
into for the roof. The roof I just had installed a couple of years ago. He told me it was on wind resistance but a certain speed. I just forgot what it was, do you know.
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing.
When it comes to wind speeds in southern California, I don't think you have much to be concerned about. Honestly, I understand that roofing materials are manufactured for nationwide use, okay, for nationwide application, and so there are areas of the country obviously tornado zones, tornado alley, hurricane laden areas, hurricane prone areas, I should say, in which you want to make sure that the roofing material is rated for a
particular wind speed. Okay, here in southern California. The fact that we just had these sixty to eighty mile an hour gusts of wind, not a lot of reports about shingles flying off of roofs, because it usually takes considerably
more than that to get up and under. And about eighty percent of the homes in southern California are asphalt composite shingles, which have a tendency to be very sticky to themselves and to lie flat and to lie pro Now, older roofs, absolutely old wood shake roofs, which shouldn't even be around Southern California anywhere, very susceptible to that lightweight
concrete tiles and stuff. You know now we're talking about, you know, one hundred plus mile an hour winds lifting those up, so wind not the first and foremost concern about that. In regards to roof I am sure. I'm quite confident if you just had your roof done a couple of years ago, that you've got a pretty dang good wind resistant roofing system in play, no matter what you bought, importantly fire resistance, and I talked about this a little earlier, but I'm going to cover it again.
You absolutely have a fire resistant roof up there if you installed it just two years ago, because it's code. Unless you broke the law and did it without a permit and found some cheap material somewhere off the black market, you have got a fire rated roof. And it's not even the fact that the local code requires you to have it fire rated. It's just the fact that roofing manufacturers are idiotic if they don't make all of their
materials class A fire rated. And Class A again is a rating that essentially, you know, it gets applied differently on different surfaces, but essentially means that that material can withstand direct contact with flame and resist it for at least an hour. And because fire lines move as quickly as they do. That's the kind of material that we're looking for to resist it for the time that it's passing through or near your home. Can it be overwhelmed yes, can it be burnt through?
Yes.
In fact, again, when you see most roofs on fire, okay, and I want everyone to listen to me on this to underscore my previous point that I repeat again and again. When you see most roofs on fire, that fire started underneath the roofing material in the attic where it's catching the rafters and the roof sheathing, the plywood and such, the wood underneath it all. It's burning from the bottom side and has burnt up and through. Very rarely these days do we find fires burning down through the class
A roofing materials into the attic. So again, the embers critical. If you have an up to date roof, I think you're probably in good shape.
Nate, Okay, I appreciate that, and that amper d Gay, that was very good. I didn't know that. And I'm telling you that that happened to my house exactly like you said.
So I appreciate it, all right, buddy, good luck, stay safe. I appreciate the call. And uh, I appreciate the shout out and the support and Nate please stay safe and I hope all goes well with your home, do I?
I you know I'm going to start.
I've got time to start another call and then we'll have to go to break. But it's all good. Let's talk to Roger. Hey, Roger, welcome.
Home, plumbster. Dame must appreciate you and tinam. Quick question regards to since you're a homebuilder, obviously I'm talking about the fiery jel. So since you're building homes, do you ever have you ever put a fire suppression I'm referring to like a CO two container or air compression that's in your garage that holds all this gel. I know it kind of looks tacky on the outside, but at least it'll save your house.
Oh, I see like an automatic deployment system. Yeah, turn it on and let's go like a mister system. It's a good question. I'll give you an absolute honest response. No, I have never built one of those systems into a home. I think we have, though, on multiple occasions equipped clients with the fire gel in order to deploy. But when I tell a client, hey, we could also automatically deploy this uh through these very unattractive pipes and this very
expensive system. Honestly, the answer has always been like, you know what, I think we got it.
Well, we'll get out the hoses and do that.
If we need to evacuate, uh, you know, we'll give ourselves a half an hour of buffer there and get it deployed. Because the fact of the matter is, it's not one of those situations that requires a constant stream. It just requires the burst the spray and then you're done.
And I think probably, and I'm speaking here beyond my area of known expertise, but I would think probably I would rather be holding the hose to control how much it's see how well it's sticking, and how much gel I need to throw onto the wall before moving on, as opposed to just sort of blindly trusting an automatic disbursement system to handle that for me. Because in different situations, a little more wind on this side of the house
versus no wind on that side of the house. On the side of the house without wind, I may go light on the side of the house with the wind, I might go thicker than normal. I'd rather be in control of that. And again, when we're talking about dispersing fire gel. I'm not talking about ignoring evacuation orders or slowing down getting out of the house, or staying home and trying to fight the fire with a fire hose. I'm just talking about me or someone in the household
applying this gel before we leave. And I'd rather have I'd rather have the human judgment as to how well it goes on and where and what, and Plus there are other things that I want to put the fire gel on other than just the house itself, the walls
of the house and the windows. I want to put some maybe up on the top edge of the roofline, on the facierboard which the sprayers would miss, and also on patio furniture, on plants, on anything that might be hanging out in the yard that needs protection as well. But that it's an excellent question, Roger, and I appreciate you bringing it up. All right, when we come back, maybe maybe one more call and then into the question of how do you restart, We'll do all of this
and more right after the news. You are Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer on KFI. This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the iHeart Radio up