Broad coalition urges California Governor, legislative leaders and local elected officials to rebuild Los Angeles to country's strongest building code  

Survivable and insurable homes are achievable for all LA County communities   

SACRAMENTO, Calif. and RICHBURG, S.C., Feb. 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- As the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and the broader Los Angeles community continue to reckon with the devastating toll of the January 2025 wildfires, a broad coalition of housing, fire science, insurance and policy experts are urging Los Angeles to rebuild using Chapter 7A building code. This diverse group has written a letter to Gov. Newsom, Senate and Assembly leaders, Los Angeles Mayor Bass, Supervisor Kathryn Barger and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors urging them to act now to ensure the rebuilding process incorporates simple, clear and actionable construction and landscaping requirements that will reduce wildfire risk.  

"Ensuring the next generation of homes in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena are survivable and insurable is not a barrier to rebuilding – it is a necessity," said Roy Wright, President and CEO of the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS). "The good news is that a path to a brighter, safer and more insurable future for Los Angeles residents is available, affordable and achievable."  

Los Angeles must confront two stark truths: 1. the destruction of these beloved communities has not reduced the broader wildfire risk to Los Angeles, and 2. the insurance market in California remains severely challenged.  

"We must rebuild survivable homes and communities that can withstand the wildfires we know they will again face so homeowners have a home to return to," said Wright. "Insurable means homes and neighborhoods that carriers are willing and have the capacity and tools to insure because homeowners have undertaken meaningful and verifiable risk reduction actions."   

Chapter 7A is the required code for building design and construction in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI).  These established and tested code requirements include many of the wildfire mitigation actions that collectively reduce the risk of home ignitions from embers, flames and radiant heat.    

"California has the tools to rebuild with wildfire resilience: California Building Code Chapter 7A," said Dan Dunmoyer, President and CEO of the California Building Industry Association.  "Under current law the Pacific Palisades will already be required to build to Chapter 7A.  We must go the extra step and rebuild Altadena to this more resilient code. The status quo is not good enough; the Altadena community must be rebuilt using Chapter 7A."  

The coalition further called upon public policy decision makers to speed up enforcement of newly released Zone 0 Defensible Space regulations.  

"Wildfire science is clear: removing combustible material from the five feet around a home is among the most important mitigation actions a homeowner can take," said Dr. Michael Gollner, director of the Berkeley Fire Research Lab and Associate Professor and Deb Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Berkley.  "It reduces the risk that wind-blown embers will ignite the home via burnable material like fences that connect to structures and adds breaks between connective fuels that allow wildfires to spread into communities.  It is a step forward that the Zone 0 regulations are being rolled out, but existing homeowners should be incentivized to implement these changes and not wait three years to enforce these changes.  Los Angeles city and county officials should adopt and enforce local Zone 0 requirements as soon as possible and apply them throughout the rebuilding phase."  

List of Signatures on the Letter:  

American Agents Alliance 
American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA) 
Buildstrong Coalition 
California Building Industry Association 
California Mortgage Bankers Association 
California Chamber of Commerce (CalChamber) 
Insurance for Good 
Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of California (IIABCAL) 
Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) 
Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) 
National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) 
NFIB California 
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 
Pacific Association of Domestic Insurance Companies (PADIC) 
Personal Insurance Federation of California (PIFC) 
Reinsurance Association of America (RAA) 
Western Insurance Agents Association  

Jeff Meston 
Executive Director 
California Fire Chiefs Association  

Bob Roper 
CEO 
Western Fire Chiefs Association  

Josh Waldo 
President 
International Association of Fire Chiefs  

Mark Brown 
Executive Officer 
Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority  

Jennifer Gray Thompson 
CEO 
After the Fire USA  

Jacy Hyde 
Executive Director 
California Fire Safe Council  

David Shew 
Fire Administrator 
Napa County, California  

Carolyn Kousky 
Founder 
Insurance for Good  

Jack Cohen, Ph.D. 
Research Physical Scientist 
Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory 
US Forest Service Research, retired  

Michael J. Gollner, Ph.D. 
Director 
Berkeley Fire Research Lab 
Associate Professor and Deb Faculty Fellow 
Department of Mechanical Engineering 
University of California, Berkeley  

Ann E. Jeffers, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor 
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor  

Kate Dargan 
California State Fire Marshal
CAL FIRE, retired 

Arnaud Trouvé 
Professor and Chair 
Department of Fire Protection Engineering, 
University of Maryland, College Park  

Alexandra D. Syphard 
Senior Research Scientist 
Conservation Biology Institute 
Adjunct Professor Department of Geography 
San Diego State University  

Frank Frievalt 
Director 
Wildland-Urban Interface FIRE Institute 
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo 

Craig B. Clements, Ph.D. 
Director 
Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center 
Professor and Chair 
Department of Meteorology and Climate Science 
San José State University  

Michele Barbato, Ph.D., P.E. (LA, Italy), F.ASCE, F.SEI, F.EMI 
Professor of Structural Engineering and Structural Mechanics 
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 
Director UC Davis Climate Adaptation Research Center 
Director 
CITRIS Climate Initiative, CITRIS and the Banatao Institute (UCB/UCD/UCM/UCSC) 
University of California, Davis  

Kimiko Barrett, Ph.D. 
Sr. Research and Policy Analyst 
Headwaters Economics 
Eulàlia Planas, Ph.D. 
Professor Head of the Centre for Technological Risk Studies 
Chemical Engineering Department 
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain  

Elsa Pastor, Ph.D. 
Professor 
Centre for Technological Risk Studies 
Chemical Engineering Department 
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain  

Crystal Kolden, Ph.D. 
Director Fire Resilience Center 
Associate Professor School of Engineering 
University of California, Merced  

Stephen L. Quarles, Ph.D. 
University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor, emeritus 
Chief Scientist for Wildfire and Durability, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, retired  

Albert Simeoni, Ph.D. 
WPI Site Director NSF-IUCRC Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center 
Professor and Department Head 
Department of Fire Protection Engineering 
Worcester Polytechnic Institute  

James L Urban, PhD 
Faculty NSF-IUCRC Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center 
Assistant Professor 
Department of Fire Protection Engineering 
Worcester Polytechnic Institute  

Guillermo Rein, PhD 
Professor of Fire Science and Director of Research 
Department of Mechanical Engineering 
Imperial College London, UK  

Christopher J. Anthony 
Former Chief Deputy Director 
CAL FIRE  

Yana Valachovic, RPF #2740 
Northern California Lead 
California Fire Science Consortium  

About the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)     
The IBHS mission is to conduct objective, scientific research to identify and promote effective actions that strengthen homes, businesses and communities against natural disasters and other causes of loss. Learn more at IBHS.org.    

SOURCE Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety