Resources for Homeowners

Fire-safe education and resources for residents, businesses, and homeowner associations in San Mateo County. Most homes that burn in wildfires are ignited by wind-driven embers, not the fire front, and the actions that prevent ember ignition are specific, proven, and mostly within a homeowner's control.

Embers can travel a mile or more ahead of a fire, and once one home ignites, fire spreads structure to structure through neighborhoods. The 2018 Camp Fire, the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex in our own region, and the 2025 Los Angeles fires all followed this pattern. The resources below reflect current guidance from CAL FIRE, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of California, and partner fire safe councils, including Fire Safe Marin, whose resident-facing resource library is among the best in California.

Start Here: How Homes Ignite

Wildfire reaches homes three ways: embers, radiant heat, and direct flame contact. Embers cause the majority of ignitions, landing on roofs, entering vents, and igniting vegetation, mulch, and stored materials next to the house. Defensible space, home hardening, and neighborhood-scale work function together as a system, and fire finds the weak link that gets left out. Our page on how homes ignite covers the science.

Defensible Space & Zone 0

California law (PRC 4291) requires 100 feet of defensible space, and the science is clear that the first 5 feet matter most. Post-fire research from IBHS and NIST shows combustible material in Zone 0 (vegetation, bark mulch, fences, stored items) is one of the strongest predictors of home loss. Start with our own defensible space and fire-safe landscaping pages, then go deeper:

• CAL FIRE: defensible space zone requirements
• Board of Forestry: Zone 0 rulemaking status
• Fire Safe Marin: Zone 0, the ember-resistant zone and how to plan for Zone 0
• Fire Safe Marin: create a fire-smart yard, including fire-smart plants and fire-resistant mulch
• The Combustibility of Landscape Mulches (University of Nevada, Reno)
• Our local plant guidance: fire-resistant plants and fire-prone plants to avoid

Home Hardening & Construction

Building components determine whether ember exposure becomes ignition. Camp Fire studies found homes built to California's Chapter 7A wildfire code survived at far higher rates than older homes, and many of the highest-value retrofits are inexpensive. Start with our Hardening Your Home guide and component pages on roofing, vents, windows, siding, and decks, then:

• CAL FIRE: home hardening and the low-cost retrofit list
• Fire Safe Marin: Harden Your Home, including fire-resistant vents and fencing, and their Wildfire Retrofitting Guide (PDF)
• UC ANR Fire Network: prepare your home and Home Survival in Wildfire-Prone Areas (Publication 8393, PDF)
• OSFM Building Materials Listing: approved WUI products

Neighborhoods & Communities

Your risk depends partly on your neighbors, and theirs on you. Organized neighborhoods share chipping, coordinate work along property lines, and qualify for grants and insurance recognition individual homes cannot reach. See our fire-safe communities page, the Firewise USA program, the IBHS Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood standard, and the Santa Cruz & San Mateo County CWPP.

Evacuation Readiness & Alerts

Structure mitigation protects property; evacuation protects lives. Do these three today: register for SMC Alert, look up your evacuation zone on Genasys Protect, and make your evacuation plan. Fire Safe Marin's evacuation planning guide has excellent checklists for go-bags, pets, and family communication.

Know Your Hazard

The State Fire Marshal's updated Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps expanded designated zones in San Mateo County for the first time in over a decade, affecting defensible space enforcement, disclosure, and building standards. Check your parcel on the official maps, and see the county planning page for what the designations mean here.

Insurance & Financial Incentives

California's Safer from Wildfires regulation requires insurers to recognize wildfire mitigation in pricing: Class A roof, ember-resistant vents, noncombustible Zone 0, defensible space compliance, and community-level actions like Firewise recognition all count. Mitigation increasingly affects whether you can obtain or keep coverage at all.

Learn About Safer from Wildfires

• IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home designation — third-party verification that documents your mitigation for insurers.
• United Policyholders — nonprofit consumer guidance on wildfire insurance, nonrenewals, the FAIR Plan, and claims.

The Science: Research & Post-Fire Investigations

• IBHS wildfire research — ember exposure testing, the noncombustible zone research, and post-fire investigations including the Camp Fire and the 2025 Los Angeles conflagrations.
• NIST WUI fire research — structure separation, ember transport, and community-scale fire spread, building on Jack Cohen's finding that home ignition is determined by conditions within roughly 100 feet of the structure.
• IBHS Suburban Wildfire Adaptation Roadmaps — how parcels, neighborhoods, and communities together interrupt conflagration.
• Living With Fire (University of Nevada, Reno Extension) — long-running fire science translation for residents of fire-prone regions.