| By Todd Woody Within weeks of the Los Angeles firestorms in January, the city of Berkeley, California, moved to do what the state had failed to for years: mandating ember-resistant zones around wildfire-vulnerable homes. The Bay Area university town of 120,000 is the latest California municipality to take matters into its own hands to defend residents against increasingly destructive climate change-driven wildfires. As heat waves and drought exacerbate fire risk in cities that border wildlands across the US, scientists have determined that removing vegetation and other combustible material within five feet (1.5 meters) of a dwelling is one of the most effective strategies to prevent wind-carried embers from igniting an uncontrollable urban conflagration. Some 2 million homes in California have been built in the highest-risk wildfire areas. As Californians continue to flee out-of-control wildfires, Berkeley could prove a model for urban wildfire protection. The LA catastrophe intensified fears that the 9,000 densely packed homes in the heavily vegetated Berkeley Hills could fuel an inferno that would burn through the city to San Francisco Bay. Insured losses from such a firestorm would total tens of billions of dollars. That’s prompted the city to take aggressive action despite resistance from some homeowners opposed to removing beloved plants and trees. Such objections and concerns over the cost of implementing what’s known as Zone Zero have long stymied statewide regulations amid disputes among politicians and regulators.  Wildfire hazards in the Berkeley Hills include densely packed homes enveloped in vegetation. Some houses still have highly combustible wood-shingle roofs. Photographer: Camille Cohen/Bloomberg Berkeley is also developing financial mechanisms to offset the cost to homeowners. One option under consideration: securitizing Berkeley’s real estate sales tax to help homeowners pay for Zone Zero work. Some neighborhoods, meanwhile, are organizing to cut costs by seeking discounts from contractors to clear vegetation and re-landscape multiple homes on a block. “Berkeley is trying to tackle the tough stuff to help homeowners build in better protections for the inevitable future fire,” says Yana Valachovic, a University of California wildfire scientist closely involved with the development of statewide Zone Zero regulations. California regulators missed a January 2023 deadline to enforce Zone Zero across the state and development of the rules remained in bureaucratic purgatory until in the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires, Governor Gavin Newsom ordered them completed by year’s end. Berkeley leaders decided they couldn’t wait. The local Zone Zero regulations take effect Jan. 1, 2026, three years ahead of when the state mandate would apply to existing homes. “It's Russian roulette every fire season. How many bullets can we dodge?” says Brent Blackaby, a Berkeley City councilmember who represents a district in the hills.  A Zone Zero-compliant Berkeley Hills home. “We can still live in the forest,” says Berkeley Fire Chief David Sprague. Source: Berkeley Fire Department In California, “The Berkeley Hills is one of the most over-landscaped, over-vegetated communities with houses carved in on steep slopes,” says Valachovic. “It’s just this very complicated jungle of combustible material.” The Berkeley plan initially applies to about 270 homes on Panoramic Hill. Berkeley is also counting on another 1,200 homes between the ridgeline and a huge regional park along the city’s eastern border to act as a Zone Zero firebreak. Under the initiative, homeowners must remove the bougainvillea and wisteria that grace residence facades along with other plants, combustible mulch and wood gates and fences within five feet of a house that could catch fire from wind-blown “ember storms.” Once a home starts burning, the radiant heat can set adjacent houses aflame. “Then it becomes a structure-to-structure conflagration and the dominoes start falling,” says Berkeley Fire Chief David Sprague. That’s what happened in the LA firestorms, leaving 16,000 homes in ruins and 31 people dead. Zone Zero can reduce the risks of an unstoppable chain reaction, allowing emergency responders to focus more resources on putting out the wildfire and evacuating residents, according to Sprague. A recent study estimated it could take nearly two hours to evacuate Panoramic Hill and more than four-and-a-half hours in the rest of the Berkeley Hills. As with the Pacific Palisades neighborhood during the Los Angeles fires, there are few roads in and out of the Berkeley Hills, which hinders evacuation. When Blackaby ran for city council in the 2024 election, wildfire was a top campaign issue. After the Los Angeles wildfires broke out, he and Berkeley fire officials spearheaded a plan to implement a local version of Zone Zero. The proposal won the unanimous support of the eight city council members and the mayor at the first reading of the ordinance in April. Then, residents like Rhonda Gruska began to push back. Her rented 1930s bungalow sits in a leafy neighborhood wedged between the ridgeline and Tilden Regional Park, putting it at the epicenter of Zone Zero. Past wildfires have broken out in the park’s 2,079 acres of grasslands and eucalyptus groves, including a 2024 blaze ignited by a vulture colliding with a powerline.  Rhonda Gruska, a resident leading the opposition to Zone Zero points out the camellia trees in her yard. Photographer: Camille Cohen/Bloomberg Gruska says she recognizes that averting an urban conflagration depends on keeping these homes from burning, and she has uprooted highly flammable plants like juniper. But she’s against Berkeley’s Zone Zero initiative, which would require cutting down her camellia trees, contending moisture-laden plants and trees don’t pose a wildfire threat. “Does this really make us safer? And then of course aesthetics and cost are important,” says Gruska, a board member of the Alliance for Practical Fire Solutions, a group formed to oppose the regulations. As she strolls around the neighborhood with two dogs in tow, she points out all the trees that closely surround homes and would have to be removed. The city council in May delayed a final vote on the ordinance to hold more public workshops. While councilmembers made some changes, such as allowing mature trees and protected species like coast live oaks in Zone Zero, they didn’t waver in prohibiting other vegetation and combustible matter. The city council voted to approve the ordinance in June. Berkeley is working on funding mechanisms to help defray the cost of complying with Zone Zero, which can run into the thousands of dollars for a homeowner. (California regulators previously estimated the price for statewide compliance at about $58 million.) The city has secured a $1 million state grant to help older and lower-income residents and is seeking further funding.  A resident sweeps up leaves, in the Berkeley Hills, a heavily vegetated neighborhood. Photographer: Camille Cohen/Bloomberg The growing toll from wildfires is spurring officials elsewhere in California to roll out Zone Zero protections, including in South Lake Tahoe. Just five to 10 feet separate many homes in the Berkeley Hills and some front yards are not much wider, which raises wildfire risk and will make Zone Zero’s visual impact more noticeable. As Blackaby walks around his neighborhood he sees much work that needs to be done but also signs that homeowners are already establishing ember-resistant zones. Blackaby acknowledges that ripping out cherished plants is difficult, and it’s something he’ll have to reluctantly do at his own home. “The more we do to create a buffer against wildfire will protect this neighborhood but also will protect the rest of the city,” he says. Read and share the full story on Bloomberg.com. | 
