First things first, what you SHOULD NOT DO, is waste time on watering your front lawns, house, and grass. This is not how you protect your home. You will want to use your time wisely on gathering every essential you will need for up to a week of being evacuated.

1. Immediately notify your household members that you are evacuating and where to meet.

Always start the evacuation process and stay alert with the local fire department, police department, and officials. This can be your only source of information when network congestion hits. Download the FEMA app and receive real-time alerts.

Once that is established, gather your essentials and start heading out to the official evacuation zones. Stay familiar with your evacuation routes and follow the authority.

2. Shut off the gas supply to your home.

Shutting off the gas at the meter will prevent any further casualties to the property. Turn off the pilot lights, and close all appliance valves and gas valves inside the property. Identify any hazards such as propane tanks and relocate them away from the property.

3. Close off all entryways, doors, and windows.

Due to the amount of smoke and embers, you will want to close off all openings. Embers are the number one cause of houses burning inside out. There are many risks that can occur if embers fly into windows, doors, cracks, etc. Embers are actually able to fly for miles away from the wildfire and ignite spot fires. If you saw footage from the Laguna Niguel Coastal Fire, a lot of the houses were flaring up from the inside out due to the embers!

Closing off all openings to the home during an evacuation is critical in blocking any embers flying through openings, thus catching any small flammable materials on fire such as debris or dust.

4. Clear out the 0-5 feet zone of your property.

Make sure that nothing is flammable, including patio furniture, firewood, plastic, or decorative pieces within the 0-5 feet space of the property. Furthermore, you will want to have some clearance of vegetation in the 5-30 feet zone of your property. This should be done proactively and on a maintenance basis to best increase the chance of your property’s survival.

Additional Proactive Tip: Apply long-term fire retardant to your property.

Did you know you don’t need to be a celebrity to have a helicopter drop fire retardant at your property? Allied Disaster Defense is able to apply this fire retardant from the ground and spray the vegetation, wood fences, decks, and perimeter of your property as an additional layer of defense.

Have you seen the red fire retardant dropped from airplanes and onto the wildfires to create lines of firebreaks? That means the fire will burn up to the line, but not any further as it will instantly be put out by the retardant. This fire retardant can be ground applied to your property as well. The exact same fire retardant as the ones dropped from the airplanes can be applied to your property and onto the vegetation along the perimeter to further protect your home.

This fire retardant is environmentally friendly and safe for humans, pets, animals, and vegetation. It is technically a fertilizer and you can technically ingest it, we just don’t recommend doing that. This highly effective fire retardant can be applied to your property throughout the fire season to proactively be ahead of the wildfires to come.

What can you do today to protect your property?

Now that you know the best tips, what you can do today is call Allied Disaster Defense and schedule a Wildfire Risk Assessment.

1) We can perform a wildfire risk assessment: a comprehensive report done by a retired fire marshal. This will recommend any risk at the property regarding home hardening, defensible space, vegetation management, and application of long-term fire retardant.

2) With the risk assessment, you can choose to perform any work recommended by us. Some recommendations you may find helpful:

– Home hardening with ember-resistant vents. These vents will prevent the embers from blowing into the property as you saw in laguna, burning the houses from inside out. 

– Vegetation management – removal or relocation of vegetation away from the property to remove any combustible vegetation away from the property, creating more defensible space for the property.

– Application of long-term fire retardant – Same fire retardant dropped from the planes but without the red dye to be ground applied to the vegetation and perimeter of the property. This is done on a maintenance basis before wildfire season and after the rain season. 

Our team is led by Retired Captain Rich Snyder, a fire marshal that will be performing the fire risk assessment. He works with Sierra Madre Fire Department and holds state certifications including Fire Investigator, Fire Protection Specialist, Fire Prevention Officer, and Wildfire Engine Boss among others. 

Rich was the first to successfully develop a unique ground application of PHOS-CHEK fire retardant, a program he’s utilized to protect the perimeter of the city of Pasadena’s iconic Rose Bowl and other wildfire-risk areas in the San Gabriel Valley, annually for the past 30 years

You can learn more about Rich with these few short videos:

Rose Bowl: https://youtu.be/ZuSNbn_Ji_w

Holistic Approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN-ZVTtZR3U

If you have any questions, please let me know. To schedule the fire risk assessment at your property by calling us or leave your information here.

The post Top Four Evacuation Tips During a Wildfire appeared first on GOTWUI.

Like many homeowners inside the wildfire hazard areas, or Fire Hazard Severity Zone (You can check here if your property is in one), you may be facing premium insurance rates or trouble finding any insurance companies willing to insure your property. There are a few steps you can take to try and make your property more “insurable”. Property owners can make their homes more insurable and overall safer from wildfire threats by creating a more “defensible space” and hardening their homes.

LA Times has recently published a similar story about a former insurance commissioner facing wildfire problems and getting dropped by their insurance company. The wildfire commissioner was not affected by the wildfires by ended up losing her insurance coverage nonetheless. If your home is surrounded by vegetation, the insurance companies can see this as a threat. Thousands of property owners ended up facing the same situation and now have to resort to new defensible space and home hardening requirements coming down the pipelines of the state officials.

What is Defensible Space and Home Hardening?

Defensible Space combined with home and property hardening solutions is essential to improving your property’s chance of survival from a wildfire. Studies show that by creating a defensible space, you can improve your property’s chance of survival by 75%.

Defensible space is the buffer you create between your property and the wildland areas that surrounds it. This space is needed to slow or stop the spread of wildfire from embers and radiant heat. Proper defensible space also provides firefighters with a safe area to defend their homes.

Home Hardening is the process of creating more fire and ember-resistant homes. Fire science has shown that one of the biggest threats to homes from wildfire actually comes from embers. These embers are capable of flying miles away from the wildfire, landing on dry vegetation or through non-ember-resistant vents resulting in the house igniting on fire. That is why these house fires pop up close to or around wildfires which escalates exponentially if the fire department can not respond in time. In most cases, fire departments are short-handed and unable to dispatch to every home when there is a major catastrophe. That is why it is important to put fire prevention before fire suppression.

See this video from AIG Insurance about ember-resistant vents:

How Allied Disaster Defense can help you?

Allied Disaster Defense is the all-in-one solution provider for everything wildfire prevention. We can start with a fire risk assessment at your property to identify all fire risks, then recommend solutions such as vegetation management, installation of ember-resistant vents, and even applying long-term fire retardant at your property before the wildfire season.

These solutions can be compiled into a report as proof that you have done the following to make your home more “insurable” to the insurance companies. In some cases, this can help your property get coverage, or even a better price or reduced price in insurance.

Our team consists of retired fire marshals and captains that inspect your property with fire science in mind. Hear what retired Captain Rich Snyder has done for the local community and with Allied Disaster Defense:

IIf you have any questions or would like to schedule a fire risk assessment, call us at 888-60-ALLIED to get started. There are quite a few other resources you can learn about fire prevention from FIREWISE communities and CALFIRE.

The post Did your insurance rates go up or failed to get renewed due to the recent wildfires in your area? appeared first on GOTWUI.

When most people think about Southern California, they think about the endless stretches of pristine coastline, the opulent mansions of Bel-Air, Malibu, and other elite neighborhoods, and the glamorous lives of the wealthy and famous who call this area home. 

Unfortunately, the area is also known for something far less glamorous and far more dangerous – wildfires that have already burnt more than two million acres of land… and that threaten to destroy many more. 

Southern California’s wildfire problem returned to the national spotlight in November 2018, when the Woolsey wildfire rampaged through Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, killing dozens and incinerating more than $6 billion in property. 

What frightens many Southern California residents is that the 2018 wildfires represented what could be just the beginning. 

Researchers have uncovered several factors that could increase the likelihood of more frequent wildfires in coming years, including: 

• Earlier spring snow melts and later autumn freezes, which extend the “dry season” in the already drought-ravaged California desert. Longer dry seasons mean more time and better circumstances for a blaze to ignite and spread. 
• Rising overall temperatures – scientific journal Earth’s Future notes that summer temperatures in Southern California have risen by 2.5 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years. Warmer temperatures, particularly during dry seasons, substantially increase the risk of ignition.
• Invasive pests – recent invasions of destructive pests are causing the weakening and death of trees and plant life, creating additional “fuel” that could help wildfires spread quickly. 

The bottom line is, there’s a good chance more wildfires are coming. One news outlet even called the wildfire threat “California’s new normal.”

What are your options if a wildfire threatens your home? 

You’ve probably spent a fair amount of time thinking about how you would deal with a wildfire threat. 

You have property insurance, of course – even though your rates could go up by 1000% or more in the next few years, you still have to maintain coverage on your home, exterior buildings, cars, personal possessions, and other items. 

But even if your insurance policy pays to restore or replace your home after a wildfire, the process is lengthy and frustrating. Depending on how severely your home is damaged, it could be between six months and three years before you can move back in.

You probably don’t want to spend that long living with family or friends. You don’t want your children to change school districts. You don’t want every aspect of your life turned upside down. 

So while insurance is a necessity, it only helps after disaster has already occurred.

Wouldn’t it be better if your home was never damaged in the first place?  

Of course it would! 

Unfortunately, your options until now have been pretty limited. You’ve probably seen videos of homeowners soaking their roof tiles with hoses and dousing their siding with buckets of water as a wildlife looms near. 

“If that’s what I have to do to save my house, that’s what I’ll do,” you might have thought. 

But once you’re in that situation, things look a little different. There are many reasons why trying to take on a wildfire with buckets and hoses should be your primary defense plan:

• Doing so requires actually being home, awake, and attentive in sufficient time to soak your property before wildfires reach it. 
• The ignition zone (the boundary beyond which your home is in immediate danger) extends 100 feet from the home’s exterior walls in each direction. If there are external buildings on your property, they would extend this zone. 
• Taking on a wildfire yourself puts you at risk of serious physical harm or even death. In the moment, you might feel like saving your home is worth putting yourself in danger. It doesn’t make sense, though, to risk leaving your family to mourn losing you.  

Does that mean there’s nothing you can do, though?

Not at all! In fact, the most effective thing you can do doesn’t even require you to leave your chair.

There’s a safe, easy way to help protect your home, family, and property against wildfire damage.

The best protection against wildfires starts long before they become an immediate threat. 

How? By applying a safe, non-toxic fire-blocking spray on outdoor flammable surfaces in and around your home’s ignition zone. 

Phos-Chek is a safe, reliable fire-blocker used by the U.S. Fire Service to protect homes, buildings, and other properties by rendering “fuel” (brush and other highly flammable items) within the home ignition zone inflammable.

You can give yourself peace of mind by applying Phos-Chek to these items within your home’s ignition zone, as well as near any areas emergency responders may need to access:

• Around the perimeter of your home
• Around the perimeter of any detached buildings
• On brush and cut wood. 

Once you apply Phos-Chek, it will provide protection for about 6 months or until ½ inch of rain falls. 

Let us do the work, so you can get back to  life – worry free. 

If you’re like most people, you don’t really want to spend your time fighting wildfires… or even preparing for them. That’s why our team of professionals is here to do the hard work for you. 

Our technicians will come to your property to conduct a 14-point inspection – we look for all potential wildfire risks and review our findings with you in detail so you know exactly how we can best protect you and your family from upheaval and loss. 

If you and our technicians agree, they’ll apply long-lasting Phos-Check fire block to all designated surfaces and create a “defensible space” to minimize the potential for damage. 

Finally, we’ll work proactively to help you further reduce risk – clearing away brush and other flammables can dramatically improve your odds of withstanding a wildfire unharmed. 

Meanwhile, you can get back to your day, knowing that you’ve taken the right step to protect yourself, your family, and your dreams from being destroyed by wildfires. 

Click here to learn more about Allied’s fire preventative Phos-Chek application services and schedule your private consultation and 14-point inspection. 

The post Worried about Wildfires? Now You Can Protect Your Home and Family without Leaving Your Chair. appeared first on GOTWUI.

That is, until it happened to you or someone you know. 

That’s the story of many who came to this paradise of picture-perfect beaches, opulent mansions, and year-round ideal weather.

They invested their money, their lives, and their family’s future into our communities. They built legacies here – legacies that they thought were indestructible.

Then they experienced the life-churning upheaval wildfires can cause. 

Does that sound familiar? 

Maybe you felt fortunate that your home didn’t burn. Still, you were left to deal with months of arguing with insurance adjusters, having cleanup crews remove load after load of soot and ash, getting your home deodorized, and replacing carpets, furniture, and flooring. 

Of course, all of this was on top of the stress that came with staying with family members or in a hotel room for months on end. The strain of being displaced can take a heavy toll on any family – and often, it even leads to divorce. Hopefully, that didn’t happen to you.

Or maybe your own home wasn’t damaged by wildfire soot, but you watched a friend, family member, or other connection go through the restoration process. In the back of your mind, you’ve been wondering if that – or worse – will happen to you when the next wildfire rages near your home.

Unfortunately, you have more than enough reason to worry:

California wildfires dubbed the “new normal.” 

Nearly 2 million acres have already burned, and the emergence of several factors has drastically increased the threat of more wildfires in the near future.

• First, extreme drought in much of the Southwestern United States, particularly Southern California, has increased the flammability of brush, vegetation, and other “fire fuels.” 
• Second, increasing temperatures are decreasing the already dangerously low humidity, further increasing the risk of combustion and decreasing firefighters’ ability to control a fire once it ignites. 
• Third, earlier snow melts are increasing the length and intensity of dry seasons. The longer the dry season, the more opportunity for a wildfire to start. A study published in Nature Communications shows that in the Western United States, burned forests were linked to a 400%+ increase in snow melt, setting the stage for intense, nearly year-round dry seasons in coming years. 
• Finally, recent outbreaks of destructive pests have weakened and killed countless trees in area forests and woodlands, increasing the availability of “fuel” for a wildfire to spread. 

For these reasons, at least one major news outlet has dubbed the prevalence of wildfires California’s “new normal,” underscoring the invisible threat that stands ready to destroy thousands of lives and cause billions of dollars in property damage.

Here are just a couple of the stories we’ve heard from people who haven’t just been through a full cleanout – they’ve lost their homes entirely:

“Everything I have has turned to ash.” 

Greg Meneshian stood stunned in front of the remains of his Bell Canyon home. Just hours before, he received a text notification containing a video of the blaze. Now, he found himself asking how he was going to keep his children in their local district without a home. 

His daughters struggled to cope with the loss. “Especially my oldest, because all of her memories are gone,” Meneshian said. “I really don’t know what’s next… everything I have has turned to ash.” 

“It just doesn’t feel real that it’s all gone.” 

Arik Fultz thinks back to the Fultz Ranch near Malibu, which was destroyed in the Woolsey wildfire. Within just a few hours, the fire consumed two barns, two homes, and three trailers, not to mention a collection of personal belongings accumulated over several decades.

He’s grateful that his family and 52 horses survived the blaze. Still, he misses the ranch he and his mother Tricia worked for years to build. “It just doesn’t feel real that it’s all gone.” 

These are just a couple of the real-life stories of people whose lives have been permanently changed by a recent wildfire. There are many more… some of which may never be told.

You don’t want to go through a cleanout… and you definitely don’t want to lose your home, your life, or your family. 

Whether you’ve already been through the stress of a cleanout yourself, or you’ve witnessed someone else endure it, you’re not willing to take that chance again. 

You’ve probably been thinking about how you can protect your property – and spare your family members from having their lives turned upside down – when the next wildfire threatens your community. 

Whatever you do, though, it’s not worth risking your life.

You may have seen videos of Southern California homeowners dousing their homes with buckets or spraying their roof tiles with a hose to try to protect their property from the flames. 

Although some homeowners have certainly been successful, many more have not. There are several key reasons why “do it yourself firefighting” shouldn’t be your first line of defense if wildfires threaten your home: 

• First, doing so requires actually being home, awake, and attentive in sufficient time to soak your property before wildfires reach it. 
• Second, the ignition zone (the boundary beyond which your home is in immediate danger) extends 100 feet from the home’s exterior walls in each direction. If there are external buildings on your property, they would extend this zone. 
• Third, taking on a wildfire yourself puts you at risk of serious physical harm or even death. In the moment, you might feel like saving your home is worth putting yourself in danger. It doesn’t make sense, though, to risk leaving your family to mourn losing you.  

That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing you can do, though. In fact, the most effective thing you can do doesn’t even require you to leave your chair.

There’s a safe, easy way to help protect your home, family, and property against wildfire damage.

The best protection against wildfires starts long before they become an immediate threat. 

How? By applying a safe, non-toxic fire-blocking spray on outdoor flammable surfaces in and around your home’s ignition zone. 

Phos-Chek is a safe, reliable fire-blocker used by the U.S. Fire Service to protect homes, buildings, and other properties by rendering “fuel” (brush and other highly flammable items) within the home ignition zone inflammable.

You can give yourself peace of mind by applying Phos-Chek to these items within your home’s ignition zone, as well as near any areas emergency responders may need to access:

• Around the perimeter of your home
• Around the perimeter of any detached buildings
• On brush and cut wood. 

Once you apply Phos-Chek, it will provide protection for about 6 months or until ½ inch of rain falls. 

Let us do the work, so you can get back to life – worry free. 

If you’re like most people, you don’t really want to spend your time fighting wildfires… or even preparing for them. That’s why our team of professionals is here to do the hard work for you. 

Our technicians will come to your property to conduct a 14-point inspection – we look for all potential wildfire risks and review our findings with you in detail so you know exactly how we can best protect you and your family from upheaval and loss. 

If you and our technicians agree, they’ll apply long-lasting Phos-Chek fire block to all designated surfaces and create a “defensible space” to minimize the potential for damage. 

Finally, we’ll work proactively to help you further reduce risk – clearing away brush and other flammables can dramatically improve your odds of withstanding a wildfire unharmed. 

Meanwhile, you can get back to your day, knowing that you’ve taken the right step to protect yourself, your family, and your dreams from being destroyed by wildfires. 

Click here to learn more about Allied’s fire preventative Phos-Chek application services and schedule your private consultation and 14-point inspection. 

The post California Wildfires Could Just Be Getting Started. Are You Ready? appeared first on GOTWUI.

Wildfires. 

No one wants to think about wildfires, but avoiding the topic is shortsighted and dangerous. A single wildfire can scorch thousands of acres of land, taking with it hundreds of lives and leaving countless more in upheaval. 

The Woolsey fire, which ripped through Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in 2018, caused an estimated $6 billion in damage, including real estate property loss.

And thanks to several environmental factors, including increasing temperatures and outbreaks of pests that kill trees, experts have dubbed wildfires California’s “new normal.”

What’s truly devastating, though, isn’t the financial cost. It’s the lives disrupted, ruined, and lost. 

“Everything I have has turned to ash.” 

Greg Meneshian stood stunned in front of the remains of his Bell Canyon home. Just hours before, he received a text notification containing a video of the blaze. Now, he found himself asking how he was going to keep his children in their local district without a home. 

His daughters struggled to cope with the loss. “Especially my oldest, because all of her memories are gone,” Meneshian said. “I really don’t know what’s next… everything I have has turned to ash.” 

“It just doesn’t feel real that it’s all gone.” 

Arik Fultz thinks back to the Fultz Ranch near Malibu, which was destroyed in the Woolsey wildfire. Within just a few hours, the fire consumed two barns, two homes, and three trailers, not to mention a collection of personal belongings accumulated over several decades.

He’s grateful that his family and 52 horses survived the blaze. Still, he misses the ranch he and his mother Tricia worked for years to build. “It just doesn’t feel real that it’s all gone.” 

These are just a couple of the real-life stories of people whose lives have been permanently changed by a recent wildfire. There are many more… some of which may never be told.

Maybe you can relate to how they feel… and you don’t want it to be your family next time.  

You’ve probably already been affected by a wildfire in some way. Maybe you know someone – a neighbor, friend, relative – who experienced the devastation first-hand. You saw them struggle to get “normal” back for a year or longer… only to end up divorced because all the stress ruined their marriage. 

Maybe you saw your neighbors outside with hoses and buckets, futilely trying to protect their homes from catching fire. 

Maybe you’ve even been through the frustrating process of having soot and ash removed from the inside of your home… and the disruption of being displaced for months on end while your home is being deodorized.

Whatever the case, you can’t shake the idea from your mind that next time, it could be you and your family saying goodbye to home. 

Unfortunately, the odds of that happening are increasing, as we saw at the beginning of this article. So what can you do to protect your property? 

Don’t be an amateur wildfire “hero.”

It’s amazing how people will spend millions of dollars on a home, and then assume they can protect it against wildfires with a bucket and a garden hose. There are several reasons that make this wildfire “plan” a terrible idea:

• First, doing so requires actually being home, awake, and attentive in sufficient time to soak your property before wildfires reach it. 
• Second, the ignition zone (the boundary beyond which your home is in immediate danger) extends 100 feet from the home’s exterior walls in each direction. If there are external buildings on your property, they would extend this zone. 
• Third, taking on a wildfire yourself puts you at risk of serious physical harm or even death. In the moment, you might feel like saving your home is worth putting yourself in danger. It doesn’t make sense, though, to risk leaving your family to mourn losing you.  

That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing you can do, though. In fact, the most effective thing you can do doesn’t even require you to leave your chair.

There’s a safe, easy way to help protect your home, family, and property against wildfire damage.

The best protection against wildfires starts long before they become an immediate threat. 

How? By applying a safe, non-toxic fire-blocking spray on outdoor flammable surfaces in and around your home’s ignition zone. 

Phos-Chek is a safe, reliable fire-blocker used by the U.S. Fire Service to protect homes, buildings, and other properties by rendering “fuel” (brush and other highly flammable items) within the home ignition zone inflammable.

You can give yourself peace of mind by applying Phos-Chek to these items within your home’s ignition zone, as well as near any areas emergency responders may need to access:

• Around the perimeter of your home
• Around the perimeter of any detached buildings
• On brush and cut wood. 

Once you apply Phos-Chek, it will provide protection for about 6 months or until ½ inch of rain falls. 

Let us do the work, so you can get back to  life – worry free. 

If you’re like most people, you don’t really want to spend your time fighting wildfires… or even preparing for them. That’s why our team of professionals is here to do the hard work for you. 

Our technicians will come to your property to conduct a 14-point inspection – we look for all potential wildfire risks and review our findings with you in detail so you know exactly how we can best protect you and your family from upheaval and loss. 

If you and our technicians agree, they’ll apply long-lasting Phos-Check fire block to all designated surfaces and create a “defensible space” to minimize the potential for damage. 

Finally, we’ll work proactively to help you further reduce risk – clearing away brush and other flammables can dramatically improve your odds of withstanding a wildfire unharmed. 

Meanwhile, you can get back to your day, knowing that you’ve taken the right step to protect yourself, your family, and your dreams from being destroyed by wildfires. 

Click here to learn more about Allied’s fire preventative Phos-Chek application services and schedule your private consultation and 14-point inspection. 

The post California Wildfires are the “New Normal.” Here’s What to Do. appeared first on GOTWUI.