The Mostly Real Estate Podcast, with Declan Spring | Real Estate Entrepreneurship

Berkeley’s Zone Zero Explained - A Conversation With Berkeley Assistant Fire Chief Colin Arnold - #71

• Declan Spring

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A half-mile of flying embers can decide your home’s fate, but the real battle is won within five feet of your walls. We sat down with Assistant Fire Chief Colin Arnold to unpack Zone Zero, why AB 38 already shapes East Bay home sales, and how clear, science-backed steps can protect families, preserve escrows, and ease insurance headaches.

We walk through exactly where Berkeley’s rules apply—focusing on the very high fire hazard zones in the Grizzly Peak and Panoramic areas—and why the city is prioritizing deeper, four-side inspections over quick curbside checks. Chief Arnold explains how defensible space works across 0–30–100 feet, what embers actually do on impact, and the practical fixes that matter most: removing combustible mulch near foundations, screening vents and gutters with ember-resistant mesh, cleaning under decks, and breaking the “wick” effect of fences and gates that run into homes. You’ll also hear how the department aligns its approach with the California Department of Insurance’s Safer from Wildfires framework to support better insurance outcomes.

If you’re listing in the hills, we cover the resale inspection playbook, how to avoid last-minute surprises, and how AB 38 compliance at the point of sale helps buyers and lenders. We also highlight real help available now: free citywide chipping, free ember mesh for vents and gutters in the very high zone, a CalFire-funded assistance program for eligible residents to bring properties into compliance, and a home hardening tax rebate that applies up to one-third of property transfer taxes to approved upgrades. From decks and hot tubs to mature oaks and cedar siding, Chief Arnold offers clear guidance and practical flexibility grounded in data and experience.

Ready to turn compliance into confidence? Check your address and programs at BerkeleyFireSafe.org, share this episode with a neighbor, and subscribe for more East Bay real estate insights. Your first five feet start today—leave a review with your biggest Zone Zero question and we’ll tackle it next.

Click here for the full text of AB 38

Click here for BerkeleyFireSafe.Org

In June of 2025, Chief Colin Arnold was selected to serve on the FIRESCOPE AdHoc Wildland Pre-Plan Group

Declan Spring is a licensed CA REALTOR® DRE#01398898

Declan:

This is Declan Springen. Welcome to the Mostly Real Estate Podcast. Well, it's a big year in Berkeley for local ordinances, and we talked a good deal on this show before the holidays about changes to BISO, the Berkeley Energy Savings Ordinance. And today we're talking about Zone Zero, defensible space, fire inspections, and enforcement. I reached out to Berkeley Fire and they quickly set up an appointment for me with Assistant Fire Chief Colin Arnold, and I think it was a really productive chat. He's very, very easy to talk to. When it comes to enforcement, Fire Chief Arnold was quick to correctly point out that although enforcement in Berkeley is not rolling out until summer twenty twenty-six, defensible space compliance is already mandated in high fire areas by State Assembly Bill 38. So along with the um Berkeley Firesafe.org website that I'll put in the show notes, I'm also including a link to the full text of AB 38, which you can download and you could run it through Gemini or ChatGPT for questions, or you could just read it the old fashioned way. Okay, before we get into the conversation with Fire Chief Arnold, I do just want to do a little housekeeping and mention that due to the fact that I had this terrible flu that's going around recently, I'm a little slow releasing this podcast. And I have another podcast coming along very, very quickly this Friday, actually, and it's unusual for me to drop two podcasts in one week. I just want to mention the Friday podcast briefly because I really specifically need to drop it on Friday, February 6th, out of respect for my guest. This is going to be a conversation with Brady Thomas. A lot of you in the industry will know Brady Thomas. He owns LaSalle Mortgage. And Brady has put a lot of time and effort into creating a field report for our local agents here in the East Bay. And so Friday's podcast is set to coincide with his launch date for the field report. So I want to support him in that project because I think it's really cool, and I think it's the best of our East Bay industry and a beautiful example uh of that collaborative approach that so many us so many of us are proud of here in the ESPE. So okay, without further ado, now whether you're a realtor or homeowner or something in between, I think you'll find this Zone Zero conversation to be a useful one. And now I bring you Berkeley's assistant fire chief, Colin Arnold. It's my great pleasure to be here with Assistant Chief Colin Arnold at the Berkeley Fire Department. And uh we are going to talk today all about zone zero changes and implementation enforcement and ember rules and all of that kind of stuff in Berkeley. It's a big year for realtors because we have changes to BISO as well. So we're dealing with a lot of ordinances going on here, and everyone's trying to get off on the right foot and give great advice to their clients, particularly in transaction, you know, listing and selling residential homes is what my podcast mostly focuses on. So, Chief Arnold, thank you. And I'd love to uh get a little bit of a bio from you. Let people know how you wound up in the Berkeley Fire Department and you know what your position is now how you got here and and what your primary focus is this year.

Colin Arnold:

Sure. Uh happy to be here. Thanks for uh coming in today. Um so yeah, I I've been with Berkeley now for 18 years. Uh started here as a firefighter paramedic in 2008. Okay. Uh I haven't done the math, but I think that's 18. Uh so um yeah, I got hired, uh, got hired here originally, came out here from Boston, yeah. Uh, and have been working with the department uh for all of that time. And in the last two years, uh got moved into the assistant chief role here. Okay. Um in charge of a new division that uh came out of a tax measure in 2020 that gave Berkeley the funds to be able to start looking into how we can reduce this risk in a meaningful way.

Declan:

Okay, wonderful. Wonderful. And and Berkeley is like ahead of the curve with with this stuff, right? So why why did Berkeley choose to get ahead of everything? What's going on with that?

Colin Arnold:

Sure. So we were approached by some of our elected leadership back in January of last year, right after Los Angeles. And uh I think it struck some of our leadership when you look down at uh some of those communities down in Los Angeles, they look a lot like the Berkeley Hills. In fact, if you look at a Google Street Maps view, yeah, um, in some ways they're almost indistinguishable. And I think uh some of our city council were pretty concerned that this has hit Berkeley before 1923, 1991, or that are the big events that people remember. But there's a lot of fires in between that um didn't take off. And the concern was can this happen again and what else could we be doing? So out of that conversation uh came the missing piece of uh risk management, and that really is zone zero. So we've looked at um what ignites homes, we've looked at what allows wildfire to become an urban conflagration.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Uh and we know that there's a missing piece there. In fact, the state knows there's a missing piece there. It's been on the books. Um, it was supposed to be implemented in 2023. So what uh what we proposed to council was this is the one missing piece that we've been expecting to hear from the state about. Um they have been silent up until this point. So if we want to take action, yeah, this is the one area where we really think uh we could make a meaningful difference.

Declan:

Okay. Now I'm I'm guessing there, you know, there's probably been an awful lot of pushback as well as a lot of a lot of praise. So you're you're probably juggling just so much right now.

Colin Arnold:

I think, yeah, there's there's been both, certainly. Uh I think there's a number of people that are concerned um that what we're doing is overreached. There's uh also a number of people that are concerned that we're still not doing enough. Uh then I think there's a lot of people in the middle that um are just waiting to be told what it is that they need to do to feel safer.

Declan:

Okay, well, fair enough. And I'm not gonna get into the politics of it all and any of that stuff. I'm really just trying to help my realtor friends and come up with some useful questions that maybe are a little out of the box or whatever, but I kind of want to go through um so when when people hear terms like fire inspection and ember rules or defensible space, there's uh confusion and there's anxiety, especially around timing, geography, and enforcement, right? So, could could you give me just a basic overview of what zone zero means and where geographically does it apply in Berkeley? And what's happening now, what's different about high fire areas in the hills, and what does the rollout of July enforcement look like?

Colin Arnold:

So, zone zero refers specifically to the first five feet around a structure. So we know that um when a wildfire reaches the edge of a community, yeah, uh it burns in one of two ways. It's either direct flame uh impacting the structure from vegetation or materials around the home that are burning.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Um or in about 80% of cases it's embers that blow about a up to a half a mile in front of a firefront. Uh and where those embers hit the side of a building and drop to the ground, yeah, or hit the side of the building and make entry through uh vents or any other openings in the side of the building.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Uh when those embers hit the ground, if they find something combustible, uh they ignite and that uh combustible material threatens the home. So those first five feet are perhaps the most critical area around a home when it comes to mitigating the risk from wildfire.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

This area applies uh specifically in what we term the Grizzly Peak region or the sorry, the Grizzly Peak area or panoramic area. And those are two areas within Berkeley that are within the very high fire hazard severity zone. Right. That are a uh we've we've identified as being the highest risk within the very high. So they're they're really a fairly small segment of what otherwise would be categorized as the very high.

Declan:

I may repeat myself a few times. No problem. Because I'm just a realtor, so I'm I'm trying.

Colin Arnold:

I'm just a firefighter, so we'll get through this together.

Declan:

Let's ground the conversation in some basics, um, what, where, and when of Berkeley fire inspections is what I want to do. So let's start with the when fire inspections are required, because I think there are several different pathways. So what and what triggers a fire inspection?

Colin Arnold:

Aaron Powell Sure. So uh any home that's within the very high uh as designated by Calfire and adopted locally by Berkeley. Okay. Any home within the very high is required to do vegetation management on their property to reduce the risk risk of wildfire.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Uh so inspections occur throughout that zone. We tend to prioritize our inspections based on those highest risk areas that we talked about.

Declan:

Yes.

Colin Arnold:

Uh but all of those homes are required to maintain defensible space. Whether they get inspected or not, that's still the law.

Declan:

Aaron Powell Let me ask you some really dumb, simple questions, right? Is everybody all over citywide in Berkeley required to maintain five feet?

Colin Arnold:

No. So the the areas that are required to maintain five feet or zone zero are the areas that are within the very high, specifically the Grizzly Peak area and the panoramic area. Okay. Outside of that, you have the very high fire hazard area. And in Berkeley, that runs from our eastern boundary down to uh about a half a mile from that boundary. Uh that area is required to maintain defensible space. Okay. Below that, uh, you have the high fire hazard severity zone. That's the area where generally the way we look at it from a code perspective, you're required to build using wildfire resistant materials on the outside of your home and take into account as you're building a new structure, things like uh screens on your vents or on your gutters.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Uh but there's not vegetation requirements within that area.

Declan:

There's a web page provided by you guys where people can just run their own address through the webpage and you can kind of see where you are geographically and what how it applies, right?

Colin Arnold:

Yeah, if you go to BerkeleyfireSafe.org, uh you can put in your address, and within there it'll it'll show you not only what area you live in, but it'll also specifically show you the programs that you're eligible for. So you know absolutely there are requirements within your area, and the closer you are to uh the higher risk areas of Berkeley, the higher the requirements are.

Declan:

Right.

Colin Arnold:

But also the more access you have to programs. And I I want to make sure that we highlight those today because for anybody that's concerned, um, whether they're buying or selling a home or whether they happen to live there, there's pretty broad criteria for folks that can have this work done for free.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Uh and so we're really excited to be able to partner with Calfire to offer those services. Okay. And I'm happy to talk more about that, but I want to make sure I get that plug in there.

Declan:

Yeah, we'll definitely talk about that. Sure. So if I'm in a if I plug in my address and I'm in the hills, say, and I'm in a a high fire area, if say I'm I'm a realtor, I'm listing a property up there next week. What do I need to do right now? Do I have to have an inspection? And is that just a mandatory thing?

Colin Arnold:

So AB 38 requires that your home be in compliance with the vegetation code. Uh, and so that's really I think the thing to pay attention to as a realtor. So uh you can call us and we can help make sure that your property is um within the inspection range so that we can tell you that you've got a compliant property when you go to sell it.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Really at this point it's between the selling agent and the buying agent or the buyer and the seller to make sure that you know in the in the disclosures that's in there. We're not currently tracking uh the A B 38 compliance. As we have capacity to do that, we may start doing that.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Because it really is one of the greatest opportunities to reduce the risk around a home and and that really serves all parties involved.

Declan:

Okay. And you're not tracking it now, but will you begin and you'll begin enforcing later this year, right?

Colin Arnold:

So we've been inspecting uh, you know, throughout. We've been inspecting for years now. Uh and what's going to happen in June is we're, you know, we're currently doing inspections right now for folks that are interested in hearing what needs to be done. Uh those inspections are occurring as we speak up on the hill. Uh we're not enforcing uh anything in terms of sending folks uh second notices or going back out and re-inspecting. That's not really happening until June.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Um but I think it's it's easy to look at this from an inspection and enforcement standpoint. Uh but from our perspective, we you know, our job isn't done until we reduce the risk. So this isn't about writing tickets, this isn't about citations. Right. I think there's a there's a need for that in a few cases, but for the most part, this is about educating residents or you know, real estate agents uh to understand the risk. And I think there's, you know, all the motivation folks need uh is out there in in the wildlands. Uh they don't they don't need a small ticket to to encourage them to do the work in almost every case.

Declan:

I I fully I fully agree with you. Absolutely. It is the right thing to do, and and we want to encourage people to do it. However, realtors worry about escrow's falling out of transaction because they didn't button things up correctly enough. They're trying to advise their clients like what will actually impact the health of an escrow or transaction, get in the way, impede, you know, successful transfer of title, all of that kind of thing. So that's where you know enforcement starts to come in later in the year. And and you know, if things aren't handled correctly, I'm just foreseeing there's a possibility an escrow could be impeded from closing because something isn't compliant with the property in the hills. You know, these are the kinds of things.

Colin Arnold:

Yeah, I think you you also have a in there's a really interesting challenge here that I can speak to what I think is happening, and and you all probably have a better sense of this than I do. Absolutely. So if if a property is going in for sale, making sure that it's compliant with the defensible space code is a part of the transfer of the sale of the property.

Declan:

Right.

Colin Arnold:

For us, that's as simple as going to Berkeleyfiresafe.org, um, going to the defensible space inspection link and uh requesting an inspection for a resale. Uh and we will send somebody out, whether you live in the high or the very high, uh, to help make sure that that home is in compliance with the code. And as a part of that, if there are compliance issues, which there often are a couple, uh, it's a very clear process that you can mitigate. You can submit those mitigations online, you can you know upload proof that the work is done, and then you have a compliant defensible space inspection report that gets included with the sale of the property.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

I think you raised a, you know, there's there's there's this concern about homes falling out of out of escrow, which I think is valid. And I think that's an easy one to solve in terms of making sure you do that inspection. But the other thing that I think is really interesting to watch over the next couple of years is what does this do for the region? And so as a fire department, we're here to protect lives and property, and obviously lives come first. But part of protecting property is making those homes more defendable, making those homes more resilient to wildfire, making those, you know, reducing the risk within those homes. And insurance is about risk. And so one of the things that we're really interested to see is how does this work start to affect uh the insurability of these homes? And we talk about checking out a mortgage on a home. Yeah, that becomes a really interesting part of the conversation. And and one of the things that we're really hoping to partner with real estate agents on is it's a it's an amazing opportunity at the time of sale. You've got a selling proper or a seller that has lost interest or or is willing to make changes to a property because they're no longer invested in it. You've got a buyer that's not particularly attached to the vegetation around a home because they haven't bought the place yet. Right. And you've got an agent that's really interested in this property being marketable in terms of insurance and a mortgage. Uh and we I think we can really partner there. And I I don't get to call any of the shots when it comes to the insurance companies, but I can tell you that one of the things that we did last year when we brought our code up to speed with the best practices, yeah, is we also aligned our properties with the California Department of Insurance uh Safer from Wildfires framework. Uh it brings us more or less into line with most of the IBHS wildfire prepared homes uh standards. Homeowners will have to do a little bit extra work to be qualified for that.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Um, but really what we've done is we've taken the best available research that a lot of our uh stakeholder groups are touting as being important. And we've we've asked our property or asked our homeowners to be in line with that. And we really believe that that's actually going to not only make homes more resilient, uh, but hopefully start to change the way this market uh moves forward.

Declan:

Yeah, yeah. Wouldn't it be great to see insurance costs come down? My goodness. I mean, they're they're uh they're they're affecting property value in the hills right now because you know, $1,000 a month in some cases, you know. So it's it's quite amazing.

Colin Arnold:

Well, and look at, you know, look at the the fair plan, right? The the highest exposure of the fair plan in northern California is Berkeley. It was $5.6 billion last year. I'm sure it's gone up since then. Um that's a that's a crisis in some ways, and it's not one that that we um have any direct impact over, but we do know that you know we we can take steps that that we know make your home safer. Yeah, that should play out in the risk market down the road, but if it doesn't, your home is still safer. And so as you look at the fair plan and the under the you know how homes tend to be underinsured with the fair plan, yeah. Uh we do know that um homeowners don't feel great about being on the fair plan. And those that aren't on the fairy plan don't feel great about their pocketbooks for what they're spending. And you know, in the back of our minds is how do we how do we help folks along the road?

Declan:

So I I'm just gonna throw out like a hypothetical because still I'm just trying to get, you know, ask simple questions here. Let's say I'm listening to a house next week, it's in the hills, and there's a hedge running, you know, within five feet uh of the property, but I say, you know, they're not enforcing anything until July. We don't need to worry about a property be sold in the next three months. So this half of the year it doesn't really matter too much. Tell me I'm wrong.

Colin Arnold:

Well, A B 38, you know, if it's in the high or the very high, which is a subset of the hills, so the you know, the high starts above the base of the hills. Uh but A B 38 would tell you that you're wrong. You know, you need to have a defense, you need to be compliant with the defensible space codes uh and have that inspection report at the time of sale.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Uh so you don't need me to do that. You've got you've got the state to do that for you.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Uh and so I would really encourage folks to to make sure that they've got that that inspection on file, just so to your point, it doesn't fall through an escrow. Uh you know, the buying, the the buyer's agent could just as easily say, This is, you know, we need this paperwork, and it's not there.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

The other thing that I think is important is for your agents is that they're going to sell a home, and that homeowner is then going to be required to go through a defensible space inspection at some point.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Uh and when we show up and we say, you know, this home has some compliance issues, yeah. And and the homeowner goes, Well, wait a minute, this wasn't reported. The homeowner is going to go back to their agent and say, Wait a minute, this isn't this isn't what I thought I was buying. Right. And so I think I I know that those relationships in that market are really important. Uh and I I would say that the worst thing that could happen is for us to come out and go, wait a minute, this home was never inspected. You didn't go through this process. Right. You've got issues with this home, you've moved in now, you've fallen in love with this hedge.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Um, and there are there are very legitimate concerns about this hedge when it comes to fire safety.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Uh, that homeowner is gonna lose a lot of confidence, I think, in in the property that they just bought when they have us show up and say, You've got a real safety risk here that we need to mitigate.

Declan:

Right, right. Okay, so just get the inspection. Just that's that's it. Because you have to be compliant, as you said, anyway, with the assembly bill, state assembly bill. Aaron Powell, Jr.

Colin Arnold:

Yeah, and I think get the inspection, but what the inspection is gonna do, especially in the Grizzly Peak area, is it's gonna bring your home into compliance with the California Department of Insurance Safer from Wildfires framework, which is right the best metric that we have for reducing risk. It's gonna make that home as marketable as possible to the to the risk market.

Declan:

Trevor Burrus, Jr. So what I'm hearing right now is uh regardless of enforcement, you need to just be playing by the rules of the State Assembly bill. And and then enforcement itself, when that happens, that's more of that's not really a purview of realtors per se. That's really got to do with just homeowners who are just long-standing homeowners. It that's that's where the enforcement applies, and those are the people who are affected.

Colin Arnold:

Aaron Powell Yeah. It becomes much more difficult when people have become invested in the vegetation around their home. It yeah. At the point of sale, it is a real opportunity, I think, for all parties involved to to bring that home into compliance and to make that home marketable when you come to escrow and needing insurance.

Declan:

Aaron Powell You'll just start doing inspections along every street up in the hills and yeah.

Colin Arnold:

So what we've you know, what we've done in the past is we have knocked on every door in the very high fire hazard severity zone uh and we've conducted a street inspection on those homes. Yeah. And we were doing 9,000 inspections a year.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Uh our very high zone has shrunk considerably. Okay. And so uh we have you know a substantially reduced volume of homes, and our goal is to make sure um that we are actually reducing risk. And we don't reduce risk by just looking at a home from the street. Our goal is to knock on doors, uh, get to know folks, get to know what their concerns are, match those concerns with resources, yeah. Uh, and get in there and make sure that we we mitigate the risk on all four sides of the structure. So this spring that's gonna look like knocking on every door, and if you don't answer, we'll come back and knock again and uh help folks, help connect folks with those resources and help reduce that risk. We're gonna start uh in the highest risk areas that we've targeted through uh some modeling. Yeah. And we'll work our way as far west as we can uh over the course of the season.

Declan:

So you're doing all of this work on top of the work that you've already been doing for you know a long time. What's it like at the personnel staffing level to manage all of this right now?

Colin Arnold:

Uh you know, we do we we bite off what we can. And I think that's one of the lessons that we learned a couple of years ago, which is that uh 9,000 sounds like a good number, but when people are are sweating trying to knock on as many doors as possible, you're Not making those meaningful connections. I think what has changed is that there's less pressure to hit 9,000 doors. And that also means more meaningful contact with homeowners. That means these inspections, instead of taking five minutes, sometimes take an hour. Yeah. But it also means walking around and really going into depth about the why.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

And then also we have free services in one form or another for every single one of these residents. And some folks qualify for some services, some folks qualify for others, but everybody can get something for free here.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

And I think that that's it's really important that we help connect folks with that because some of this feels overwhelming.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

And for some folks, this is a slow change. This is going to take years. And we're okay with that. This is about helping meet folks where they're at and and show improvement this year.

Declan:

Aaron Powell So listen, residents in Grizzly Peak and panoramic mitigation areas have the strictest local mandates, right? So that includes, tell me if I'm wrong, a hundred-foot buffer divided into three safety zones. Is that right? Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

So Calfire has had defensible space zones now for uh a number of years. And this goes back to the 1980s in a guy named Jack Cohen uh who started looking at how far away from a structure um vegetation restrictions really start to matter. And and and they figured out back then that it was about a hundred feet.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Um so outside of a hundred feet, it doesn't matter what you do. Uh it doesn't matter what you do a mile deep in the park. It it the work really starts within a hundred feet.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Of course, here in Berkeley, a hundred foot yard is a big yard. Uh and so for most folks, a hundred feet is your neighbor. Uh so it is divided into three zones. You've got zone two, zone one, uh, and so zone two is thirty feet to a hundred, zone one is used to be from the structure out to thirty feet. Uh and then the research that we've seen in the last 10 years or so has really demonstrated that within that zone one, especially within the first five feet of the structure, yeah, uh, that's where those mitigations really do mean the most. And so we ran out of numbers because we already named it zone one, that's where zone zero comes from. Ah, okay. So all homes within the very high have to comply with uh zone one and zone two, and then within Grizzly Peak and Panoramic, there's that additional work uh within the first five feet of the structure. Got it, got it.

Declan:

Now, so so let's talk about the uh the home hardening tax rebate program. Let's talk about uh just let's talk about the incentives that are there. Aaron Ross Powell Sure.

Colin Arnold:

So there's there's a number of incentives uh that we currently have, and and some of those have existed for a long time. We offer free chipping services for any resident in uh actually any resident in the city. Uh so we can chip any any vegetation pile for free and remove it for you.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Uh we've also got uh a free home hardening program we will supply to any home in the very high fire hazard severity zone, uh Ember resistant mesh that'll cover all of your vents, right? And then also mesh that'll cover your gutters. On top of that, there's also the residence assistance program, which is a CalFIR-funded grant. Uh we received a million dollar grant from CALFIRE and that allows us to do uh bring any home into compliance with the vegetation code. So if you're in the very high, it's one vegetation code, and if you're within the Grizzly Peak or Panoramic, it's also got zone zero.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Um, we can come in and do that work for free with a with a contractor. Uh you have to meet certain requirements. So the person applying has to be 65 or older. Uh they have to be low income based on the California metric for this year. Yeah. Or they have to uh self-identify as being physically or medically unable to do the work. Okay. And so any anybody that meets one of those parameters can apply and uh a contractor will come out and bring that home into compliance with the code.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

On top of that, there's also the uh home hardening tax rebate program. So that uh was set up last year and is going into place this year. So uh around the time of sale, either before or after sale, a homeowner can apply uh up to one-third of their property tax towards home hardening measures that are pretty clearly defined in the law. This is based on a on a wildly successful seismic retrofit program. Yeah. Uh but this also now applies it to homes that are at risk of wildfire.

Declan:

Okay. Yeah, okay. And that's all available to us as realtors in in an addendum that we have that we attach to contracts for you know residential resale in Berkeley. So it's it's fairly straightforward and well written in there. We had to wait until I think January 1st to see it in writing. So we're all like, what the good? But you know, it's finally it's there and and people are working with it now. If um let me ask you a couple of like little just little things that are are on my mind. Let's uh you could do there's so many wooden decks, let's say, in the hills. Yeah. Um a wooden deck is not per se a compliance issue or it's not a you know an immediate fail, right?

Colin Arnold:

Because no, not at all. I mean you can you could still build a wooden deck in the in the hills. There's uh you know wooden decks are considered an uh apprennance, excuse me, I'm saying that wrong. A pertinence. A pertinence, thank you. Uh there's always one more syllable in there.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Uh so that's considered a part of the structure.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

So generally, the if we're talking about the Grizzly Peak and Panoramic area, the five feet start from the outside edge of the structure. And if that deck is considered part of the structure, your five feet go around that deck.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Now, some folks are choosing to build non-combustible decks. Yeah. Uh so they've got decks uh made out of class A non-combustible material.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

And we will work with those homeowners. That that deck, if it's maintained in a non-combustible way, can function as the first five feet of the structure. So uh when folks are choosing to replace their decks, one thing that we'd we ask that they consider is hey, you could build this above and beyond the requirements of the code.

Declan:

Yes.

Colin Arnold:

And that's a great way to work with us to to find a way around some of these challenges.

Declan:

Okay, brilliant. Listen, uh I I'm gonna stay on the decks for a second because um one of the eligible rebate items is amber resistant mesh around deck perimeters, right? And and so for listeners who are visual and even me, because I haven't had a chance to look it up, what does it actually look like? What does what does a mesh look like? Aaron Powell Sure.

Colin Arnold:

So the mesh is uh less than one-eighth inch, and in fact, our case it's about one sixteenth inch, but it's a it's a rated mesh that has been demonstrated to vastly reduce the numbers of embers that penetrate it. And so one of the main causes of ignition of homes is you, you know, all homes have vents around them to it's part of the building code. Yeah. Uh and so one of the reasons homes burn is embers get inside of those vents inside the outside skin of the home, and most of our homes are built of kiln-dried lumber.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Um, and so that's a real ignition challenge.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

In addition to that, uh, one of the other challenges is underneath decks, especially decks that are less than four feet tall, a lot of stuff just grows down there, right? It's kind of tough to get to. I'd especially if you're a tall person, getting under there every couple of weeks and cleaning out the leaves and the grass can be challenging. And so uh one of the things that we also offer is mesh that goes up to four feet that you can screen in those sections of your deck uh so that you don't have to worry about what's under there anymore. Okay. When your deck's taller than four or five feet, it's a lot easier to get under there and and scrape out the leaves. And we don't have mesh that will go that tall anyway.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Um, but that's a great way to get into compliance with the code.

Declan:

Aaron Powell, you know, sometimes people have uh like a platform, like it's not an attached deck, but it's like you open a slider and you walk out onto a platform, which is you know raised off the ground, but it's it's absolutely not attached directly to the house. That's not part of the structure, it's not a pertinence. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Colin Arnold:

Yeah. So what would happen there is if it's if it's not technically part of the structure, but it's within five feet, an another way to think about that is a hot tub. Um you know, it's a hot tub is very different from that sort of low deck.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Uh but if it's within five feet of the structure and it's combustible, what we would ask folks to do is incorporate that into the footprint of their home in in the eyes of the inspector and build five feet around that. Uh so some there's a couple of different ways to handle this. One, you carve out an additional five feet of non-combustible zone around your low deck that's not attached to the structure or your hot tub or anything else within your what would be zone zero. So you build a zone zero around that.

Declan:

Right.

Colin Arnold:

Or you replace the first five feet of that with something non-combustible so that you still get that non-combustible section.

Declan:

Right. I'm I'm sure you're hoping that realtors don't do the inspection and then right at the last minute getting ready for photographs, they come in with their their their mulch around there.

Colin Arnold:

Yeah, that's I mean it I guess we're worried about that, but we will also solve that in the inspection process. Uh we will have a disappointed buyer um who thought they were buying a home that was in compliance. Uh but our our job is to reduce that risk. So in the in the compliance inspection, we will walk through with the realtor or whoever's doing the inspection with us to help make sure folks understand that.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Colin Arnold:

Um, you know, we we rely on the on the good faith of of everybody involved going forward.

Declan:

Let me just get back to the mesh thing for just a second. I don't I don't know why I'm so fixated on it. But when you say the city will provide, do they also install?

Colin Arnold:

No, we don't install. Uh we provide the mesh or one of the options. If if you don't go with us, you can go with another uh mesh provider, but we'll provide it for free.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

You do have to come up with either your own uh installation solution through a contractor or you can do it yourself. That's okay. It's challenging for some, but for uh you know an invested DIYer, it's definitely doable. Aaron Ross Powell Okay, fair enough.

Declan:

And and uh let's see, uh the tax rebate. So can you only apply for the tax rebate if the if the work is done after application? Or is there a retroactive? Like I think it goes back maybe five years or something?

Colin Arnold:

Aaron Powell That sounds right. We'd have to look at that language together because I know that was shifting around. Uh for the approved methods as written in that code, which really um are most of the home hardening requirements for new construction. So if you retrofit uh your home with most of the approved home hardening retrofit requirements, uh any of those can be applied up to one-third of your tax rebate. It's also important to note that you can use one-third of the rebate total. So you can still take advantage of the seismic program. Right. You can take advantage of the home hardening program, but you can't get two-thirds out of your tax rebate. So uh it's one third cumulative.

Declan:

Okay. Thank you for pointing that out. That's actually pretty good. Okay, I'm a couple more little questions that that might come up. What if within five feet of the house I happen to have a protected tree, uh an oak or something like that, uh that's healthy and well, and and now I'm being what what goes on in a situation like that? I know I doubt that a lot of people have an oak tree within five feet, but you know, it could happen. There's actually a surprising number that do.

Colin Arnold:

Uh yeah, especially here in Berkeley. So we've got, you know, we have a protected tree species, which is the Coast Live Oak uh ordinance. Um but honestly, that it you'll you'll notice when you read the code language that one of the things that's accepted is mature trees that are taller than the home. So uh there's a substantial amount of research out there that suggests that mature trees generally are not a risk uh to the home in most wildfire situations, and we would encourage folks not to remove them. Um those mature oaks, those redwoods, yeah, uh they are beautiful examples of trees that have been around sometimes for hundreds of years, and that species has been around in the Bay Area for thousands of years, and they're well adapted to wildfire. They're not going anywhere. Okay, that's great. So in in situations like that, we would not ask you to remove that tree. There are some examples of especially trees that uh some of the leafy canopy comes into contact with the home or the roof. We'd ask folks to trim some of those branches that are within five feet. The the bowl of the tree, uh, which is refers to the trunk. The bowl is fine. That can be anywhere around the property, including within the first five feet. But when you start to see some of those uh smaller branches within five or six feet of the roof or within five feet of the side of the home, we'd ask folks to to trim that up. Okay. Um but other than that, you know, trees are trees are a beautiful part of this landscape, and we wouldn't want people removing them.

Declan:

Aaron Powell Okay. And I I think the city also provides uh a pretty good list of of uh native, probably native uh species of plants and shrubs and whatever that are maybe more fire resistant. What's going on with those?

Colin Arnold:

So we've got a uh we've got a comp there's a number of comprehensive lists that are out there for um vegetation that is more appropriate in fire zones. Yeah. Uh we the city of Berkeley has its own particular list. So we looked at some of the other lists and then we worked um with some uh local experts to establish a list that not only um was probably uh both more appropriate for this region, but also pollinator-friendly, was native to the region.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Uh and so that list is also available on our website. Uh so that's another great choice. Uh again, that vegetation, a lot of that vegetation has been around for a long time in this area, which means it's been exposed to fire. And that doesn't mean that it necessarily resists fire.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

It just means that it is able to adapt to this climate. So some of that vegetation still burns readily. Uh so it's not appropriate within the first five feet of a structure.

Declan:

Uh-huh.

Colin Arnold:

It just means that it can regenerate after a fire uh really effectively. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

Declan:

You don't see it too often in the hills, but we have zeros zero lotlines. You know, it's it's not unusual. Let's say my neighbor if he just happens to have a wood gate fence, whatever, and that's within five feet because we're almost zero lot line, and and and so it's not on my property, but it's within five feet, and it's it's wooden, and you know, I'm in zone zero. Sure.

Colin Arnold:

So we've we have written into our code that you are responsible um for the risk to a structure, whether that's your structure or somebody else's. And so you know, fire doesn't respect property lines, and so the code really can't either in terms of mitigation. And so the way that would play out, and gates and fences are a little bit tricky, and we could talk about that. But please. Yeah, that um really if you have vegetation on your property that's within five feet of another structure, yeah, you would be responsible for mitigating the risk to that other structure.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

When it comes to gates and fences, uh, under the new ordinance, fences that are parallel to the structure don't need to be removed. Uh but fences or gates that are not parallel to the structure and come within five feet of the structure. So think about gates up against somebody's home or fences that contact a home.

Declan:

Right, like a 90-degree angle to a wall.

Colin Arnold:

Yeah, exactly. Uh oftentimes people are using them to to keep pets in or maybe keep deer out, uh unless you've got a deer as a pet, which is probably a different situation. Um But what what happens in those situations is those old wooden fences uh become wicks. And LA was actually a great example of this. I have to say, LA was not the first example we have of wildfire impacting community, but it's got to be some of the best video that we have. Right. Um so the evidence that comes out of LA LA is overwhelming and honestly reinforces what we knew. But one of the things that happened that you can clearly see down there is fires would start a good distance from a structure. And yeah, because we're talking about wildfire becoming an urban conflagration, you have situations where fire starts a good distance away from the structure, and some ground vegetation and some mulch, that fire spreads to the fence, and that fence carries the fire to the structure. And because what urban conflagration really is, is a shortage of resources based on the number of structure fires, yeah. A small fire just continues to grow until it takes down a structure. And so what we're really trying to do with the the fence piece of the new uh fire code is to prevent that fire from making it all the way to the structure. We assume that those fences are going to be exposed and vulnerable to fire. We just don't we want to stop that process by which that wick reaches the structure.

Declan:

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for talking about that. Yeah. Here's another thing. Let's say I have, as we see frequently up in the hills, you've got pressure-treated retaining walls. Uh there may be, you know, have a steel post or concrete post, but there's pressure-treated wood and it's within five feet of a house. Now that's an enormous uh project to get that back from within five feet of the house. Let's say it's a 90-degree angle to the house. Um what's going to happen to a situation like that? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

Colin Arnold:

So what we'd look at in that case is most pressure-treated retaining walls, at least half, if not more, of that lumber is not exposed to the air, right? It's it's behind um soil. So, really what you're looking at is it's very different from a fence. A fence, all four sides of that fence are exposed to the elements.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

In a retaining wall, that lumber is in the ground, uh, benefits from the moisture that's in the ground. Um really presents a fairly difficult surface for embers to ignite. Uh, and given you know the the requirement for direct flame to move across you know two sides of a dimensional four by four or four by twelve if it's a retaining wall, yeah. Um is is quite a bit more difficult. And I think we have a we've got an obligation as we look at this to also make sure that you know we're not creating other challenges for the property.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

And so in cases like that, we might work with the resident to try to make sure that there wasn't a direct flame risk to um fire moving from, say, the vegetation through the retaining wall to the structure.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

But there's a lot more room for flexibility when we're talking about ingrand in-ground combustible risks like that.

Declan:

Aaron Ross Powell And there's an awful lot of beautiful cedar shingle houses all around the the hills. You know, not everybody likes the look of it. I I like them, especially when they're new. But what happens to a homeowner like that up in a very high fire area? Are they required to have the shingles checked or what's gonna happen?

Colin Arnold:

No, so that you know, we've wood shake roofs can no longer be built in the city, and that's um that comes out of we've known that since 23. Uh and that's been reinforced time and again. So replacing a wood shake roof uh is just not a good idea and isn't allowed. Now, wood shake siding is a is a bit of a different story. And so depending on how that siding is maintained and depending on the structure, uh, it's probably not a great choice for your siding in a very high fire hazard severity zone. And in fact, you you know your insurer may make that decision for you. Right. Um, but we don't have evidence to suggest that you can't make um wood shake siding uh compliant and fairly safe. What we'd really be worried about with wood shake siding is that wood shake igniting from the ground and and fire traveling vertically up a face. Fire travel is much faster vertically than it does horizontally. Yeah. So what we've seen is that most embers uh that would otherwise ignite a home, they bounce off the siding and they hit the ground. Okay. And so we would be, or a homeowner would be really incentivized to to maintain that five feet and maybe a bit more of you know by their own choice to protect their siding.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

But you can still build with uh cedar shake siding. Uh and in fact, there's ways to do it uh within the code where the you have an extra layer of compliance or an extra layer of fire resistive construction behind that shake siding that that makes it possible to continue doing that.

Declan:

Okay, but for like resell uh home that's been around for you know fifty, sixty, seventy years is you know, got shingle siding, um you guys come up and do your inspection up there. That homeowner doesn't have to feel like there's gonna be any significant problem as long as it's obviously well maintained, I guess. I don't know. Maybe it's not well maintained, maybe they're fried.

Colin Arnold:

Aaron Powell Well, you'd have to you've got to sell the you know that that transaction's gonna have to involve the cost of replacing that cedar shake, but that's uh that's on you all. But we as a you know, from a compliance perspective, no, that we wouldn't stop anything there.

Declan:

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And let's talk about roofs just a little bit. That's probably gonna exhaust me from questions. Um yeah, let's just go over the whole detail of roofs. I mean, if a if a homeowner is concerned because they don't understand if they have a class A rated roof or they didn't put the roof on, somebody else did. And like what should their level of anxiety be? Let's say if it's just if it's just your your you know, garden variety, 30-year compshing roof, which we see so many of.

Colin Arnold:

Uh you know, I from an inspection standpoint, no. You know, we're we're there primarily to inspect the vegetation around the home. That's that's really where AB 38 comes into play. Um a a 30-year-old comp shingle roof is probably a class A rated roof based on the fact that it's Comp Shingle.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

It's 30 years old, so you've got a roof replacement issue there. Um But that's uh that's not something that we're gonna be particularly concerned with. We just know that when it comes to replacing that roof, okay, when you replace that roof, because of where you live, it's going to have to meet those code standards.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

But most of these roofs already do.

Declan:

So if there's if there's like one assumption that you want homeowners and realtors to stop making about fire inspections vertically, what would it be?

Colin Arnold:

Let's see. For homeowners, I think the I I would I would look at that in two different ways. From homeowners, the one thing that I would want them to take away from is that you don't need to worry about calling us and and starting off a process that feels out of control. I think we are asking folks to take a substantial step in reducing the risk. And it's a substantial step can be challenging for folks. And uh, you know, we're we all have homes, families, challenges, financial constraints. Everybody that comes out and does an inspection is human. Um and so one of the things that we want folks to understand is that we will work with you. We will connect you with resources. Um if you have a lot of work to do, we will come up with a plan so that over two, maybe three years, uh, if that's what it takes to get you into compliance, we're there to work with you. So we want to see folks making progress. In fact, we found that most folks are very aware of the risk where they live and are very willing to make progress. Um, but you don't need to be afraid about us coming out and you know hitting you in June with hundreds of dollars of citation. It's just not gonna happen.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

We refrain from using that process unless that becomes the way that we drive compliance, but most folks don't need to be reminded of the risk.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

So we will work with them there. When it comes to realtors, it's interesting. I am not a real estate agent. Uh I'm impressed by the market and the work that they do, and I'm impressed by the relationships that they build in the community. I I think if I was to look at it from their eyes, that's a there's a challenge, I think, to selling property in a very high fire hazard severity zone. And if if folks have forgotten about that challenge, California will remind them every year or two when the next big incident happens. And so I think one of the I I see real estate as a partner in this. I think what they have as a challenge, we also can help offer a solution. And so I I heard from an agent that they were concerned that they'd lost a sale because of the rules. And I sort of I looked at that and I went, that that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because I see it a little bit differently. I think when you're trying to pitch a sale of a home to a potential buyer in an area that has burned before and will burn again in terms of the risk will represent itself by Is a recurring phenomenon in California. It's not going anywhere. So these folks know that when they buy a home, they're buying a home that carries with it some risk. And I think one of the things that we can offer to this market right now is to be able to say, hey, look, you are buying a home in an area that has been identified as risky. However, you're buying a home in a city that has the best fire code in the country based on the best available science in the country to reduce the risk as much as we believe we can in your community. So if you're going to buy a home in the hills of California, if you're going to buy a home in an area that's subject to wildfire, Berkeley, I believe, is going to be a pretty good place to do that. And the other thing that I can say to back that up is I really believe in our response. So we have high standards for mitigation in terms of risk and prevention, but we also have really high standards in terms of response. And so one of the things that I believe is that we are asking folks to do something here. But we are backing that up with saying we have some of the best trained resources in the state and the country. I believe, you know, we we don't need wildfire at our city limits, but when it gets here, I think uh we can be ready. So last question what's the turnaround on an inspection right now? At the moment for a resale inspection, uh, we try to prioritize those as best we can. That's usually a handful of days. Uh and then one thing that folks ought to consider is if there is work that needs to be done, um, that's gonna take a week or so. So if they're if they're looking at selling, get that inspection in early because you'll know what needs to happen.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Uh and then when you bring in your your landscape contractor to to prep the home, they can take care of those issues. You can send us some photos, and you're off for the races.

Declan:

So basically, people just need to lean into this, not complain about this, uh, right? Just just go with it, right?

Colin Arnold:

I do think, you know, there's there is this idea of okay, you just need to lean into this and and accept it. And I I in some ways I guess that might be true, but I also really do encourage people to ask questions. There's a reason we have an hour allotted for each one of these inspections. And this isn't about, you know, just do what we say. This this is about people feeling really good about where they live. Yeah, and so that involves ask us difficult questions. Let give us the opportunity to explain things that don't make sense and let us tell you what we don't know, because you know, there's there's the argument that the science is evolving, and it turns out with science, it's always evolving. So there's there's some things that we have really strong evidence for, there's things that we don't know yet. And so we're happy to walk folks through what we know and what we don't.

Declan:

You know, you're very, very good at this because that was a that was a really good answer to, you know, to what I said. You know, just lean into it, and you came back with a very friendly, very a much better, a much better response than I had anticipated. So maybe I was testing it a little. But you know, it it uh it it's so clearly evident in how you present yourself that you're a friend to homeowners and the hill. This is really something that that you care about, and it's just not about as you can as you said over and over, it's not just about enforcement. This is about community outreach and about building a healthier, better community. So I I it it just comes off of you, and it's really, really cool. I I appreciate that.

Colin Arnold:

I you know, I I've been working here for 18 years now, and I I think Berkeley's community is a really um I'm I'm privileged to work here, and I think that's for a couple of really specific reasons. But one of it is that this community will hold you accountable. And I think um they they will ask the tough, tough questions. Um, they are empowered and they know the right people to talk to to make sure that you aren't pulling the wool over their eyes.

Declan:

Yeah.

Colin Arnold:

Um, and so they will require you to know what you're talking about. Um and we won't try to pull something off without you know having our our ducks in a rail. With that said, um, they will also really support us. And I think in 2020, we were able to pass a tax measure during COVID um that provided for uh new services to the city, one of which is my entire division. So I I have the community to thank for us being here to be able to do this. And I it is an interesting inflection point to say, you know, we're using tax dollars to change the rules to in some ways, you know, challenge residents to um meet a higher expectation. And and I don't take that lightly. And so I I do think folks deserve to ask us those questions and and they deserve to have a legitimate answer. I'd you know, lean in, you know, just just lean in is uh some folks will probably be excited about that. They'll love the idea that hey, I know what I need to do, and I've got a I've got a path forward, and I have this nervous energy about the next wildfire, and here's what I gotta do.

Declan:

Sure.

Colin Arnold:

Some folks are gonna ask me some legitimate questions, including what the definition of a bowl of a tree is, and we need to be ready to answer that.

Declan:

Yeah, yeah. No, you'll get all kinds of questions from Berkeley. So our time is up. You've been fantastic. I hope just in hearing you speak that people will feel a little less intimidated about the process and you know, more encouraged to reach out because you're clearly here to help the community. So I appreciate your time. And uh uh if you want to give people a specific email address where they can have questions go.

Colin Arnold:

Sure. I I I appreciate you taking the time to come in today. Uh, it means a lot to see people invest in this process. Uh, like I said, this is a this is a pretty critical point in the time of sale when it's a real opportunity for uh uh an agent and a potential buyer to set themselves up for success uh and to feel really good about the process. Uh for folks that have questions, they can reach out to us at wildfire at berkleyca.gov.

Declan:

Okay.

Colin Arnold:

Um there's also a number of programs that anyone can take advantage of uh before sale, after sale, uh even during sale. Uh and for that, go to our website, berkeleyfiresafe.org, uh, and you can scan for programs. You can put in the address, it'll tell you exactly what you're eligible for.

Declan:

Well, Assistant Chief Colin Arnold, you've been uh a joy to sit with. You're you're really, really good at this. And uh I'll wish you well, and hopefully uh there's not a difficult fire season around the corner for you guys uh in 2026, and all of this goes off relatively easily and is embraced, and and things get better here as from from a risk standpoint.

Colin Arnold:

Yeah, thanks for taking the time, and you know, if that fire does arrive, I think with the help of the community, we'll be ready.

Declan:

Okay, thanks for listening, everybody. If you want to reach out to me with suggestions for the show uh or that kind of thing, I really welcome any suggestions. The uh number to text or call is 415-446-8591. Okay. The episode was edited by me with original music by Chuck Lindo and graphics by Lisa Maser. The podcast is brought to you by the Home Factor Realtors, the HomeFactor.com. Catch up on the latest news from the East Bay market in their weekly substack published every Sunday. Go to the Homefactor.com to subscribe. Okay. Catch you on the next podcast, everybody.

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Chief Colin Arnold

Guest