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You’ve decided to live in the Santa Cruz Mountains. You wanted the redwoods and the morning mist. Then you applied for homeowners insurance, and you realized that the insurance companies view our beautiful ridges as a giant pile of kindling.

Welcome to the current insurance landscape, where finding a traditional policy is about as likely as finding a parking spot at Pleasure Point on a sunny Saturday. Most private carriers have ghosted us like a bad date, leaving roughly 11,000 mountain residents clutching our California FAIR Plan policies like a life raft made of very expensive paper.

Speaking of expensive, let’s talk about the FAIR Plan. Starting October 15, they will hike rates by a statewide average of 29.1 percent. In high-hazard mountain areas, our adjustments might make that 29 percent look like a bargain.

The FAIR Plan only covers fire. If a burglar steals your TV or a guest stumbles over a rogue banana slug, you’re going to need a supplementary wraparound policy. It’s like insurance lasagna: layers of premiums just so you can sleep at night.

There is a glimmer of hope. Santa Cruz County has officially been named a “Fire Risk Reduction Community.” This sounds like a fancy merit badge, but it could mean you get a discount. If you’re in a Firewise Community or you’ve spent your spare time hardening your home—things like clearing brush and installing ember-resistant vents—you could snag up to 16.4 percent off the wildfire portion of your policy. It’s the insurance equivalent of getting a gold star for not letting your yard look like a tinderbox.

And if you get a non-renewal notice in the mail that makes your heart skip a beat, don’t panic just yet. California has a mandatory one-year moratorium on non-renewals that kicks in when there’s a state-declared emergency nearby. It protects your ZIP code from being dropped solely because a tree looked at an underwriter the wrong way.

We’re all in this high-premium boat together. If you need help navigating the paperwork or just want to vent about the cost of joist-hardening, call me at 408-316- 1666 or email Keith.Kanady@Compass. com. I’m here to help with all your real estate needs and to keep your mountain dream from becoming a mathematical nightmare.

In the Santa Cruz Mountains, the most dangerous part of a wildfire may arrive miles ahead of the flames. When most of us picture a wildfire destroying a home, we imagine a wall of flame roaring through the trees and crashing into the building. That can happen. But that is not how most homes ignite.

In recent California wildfires, 90 percent or more of the homes destroyed were ignited by embers. Those embers—small pieces of burning wood, bark, leaves and other material—can travel two miles or more ahead of the fire. They arrive by the thousands or millions, driven into neighborhoods by powerful winds.

I saw this firsthand during the 2020 CZU fire. My family was packing to evacuate our home as gray ash fell through a yellow-brown sky. Mixed into the ash were larger black fragments, some glowing orange inside. The flames were nearly two miles uphill, across Highway 17 and two county roads. Yet, here were dozens of burning embers dropping out of the sky.

We were lucky. Those embers landed on solid decking, leaving them pocked with dozens of black ember scars. Had they settled into dry leaves, bark mulch, or a debris-filled gutter, the outcome could have been very different.

A home ignites when heat, fuel, and oxygen come together. We cannot remove oxygen from the air or stop every ember carried by a wildfire. But we can remove the fuel an ember needs and interrupt the pathways that let a tiny ignition grow into a house fire.

Look at your home through an ember’s eyes. Can they settle in leafy debris? Can they enter your attic or crawl-space vents? Maybe wood mulch touches wood siding in a protected corner? Does a wooden fence connect directly to the house, creating a combustion pathway? Are there gaps around the garage door where fire-driven winds can blow embers inside?

Embers are only one threat. Direct flames from a burning shrub, fence, or shed can touch the home. Radiant heat from a nearby structure can break windows and heat other materials to ignition temperature. These pathways often work together: an ember ignites mulch, the mulch produces flame, and the flame climbs combustible siding under an open eave.

A stucco exterior or Class A roof does not make a home invulnerable. Neither does clearing brush while ignoring vents, gutters, decks, and roof edges. Wildfire searches for weak links. The encouraging part is that some of the most valuable work is simple: clean debris, move combustible storage, separate fuels from the house, and protect vents and other openings before fire season.

Home hardening is not about guaranteeing survival. It is about denying embers the small opportunities they need to ignite pathways into your home. Dave's book is available at amazon.com/dp/B0HGDLQKP8.