July 20, 2025 • 28 mins
Dean Sharp shares smart, budget-friendly ways to fire harden your home during peak wildfire season. From creating zero-defensible zones to using fire-rated window films, Dean explains how simple changes—not extreme measures—can make all the difference. He also breaks down how fire lines work and why every homeowner should have a fire-prep checklist in place.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. We
are having our Midsummer fire season prep show. Yeah, I know,
it's a lot, and we talk about it a lot,
and in southern California, especially especially this year, because very
(00:22):
close by we've had the Alta Diana, the Eden Fire,
We've had the Palisades Fire, the largest and most expensive,
most destructive residential fires in I believe us history. Just
it's a lot. It's a lot, I know, and believe me,
there are so many other things I'd rather talk to
(00:42):
you about than getting ready for some disastrous situation. But
here's the point, Because I want to talk to you
about all those things. I want to talk about your
architecture and transforming your home in a way that just
becomes this beautiful oasis of your life that you love,
that inspires you, that launches you out into the world.
Because I want all of those things for you. I'd
(01:04):
like your home to still be standing, and so we
want to keep it in place. That's job one, and
so as a result, we will talk about fire hardening
your home. Now so far on the program, I have
divided the concept of fire hardening into two phases, when
the fire is near but not at you, and when
(01:28):
the flames are here. Okay, and as you know, if
you've been listening, if you haven't, if you didn't hear
the first part of the show, make sure you go
to the podcast and listen to the whole show because
so much critical information. I've talked about the fact that
eight out of ten homes burn in a wild fire
because they ignite before the fire arrives. We've talked about
(01:49):
the vulnerability of at events and the need for retrofitting
your home with ember proof, ember resistant at events. We've
talked about all of that. Now I want to transition
to when the fire is here and start having that conversation.
(02:10):
So we've done our best and there's a little bit
of transitional space here where where we're talking both. Okay,
the embers, we've already discussed that they land on your roof,
No big deal, all right, unless you have an old
wood shingle roof, which hardly anybody does anymore, and by
the way, you shouldn't have, especially if you live in
(02:31):
southern California, because there are so many great alternatives that
are class A fire rated. All asphalt shingle roofs, which
are the majority of roofs in the area. All asphalt
shingle roofs installed in the last forty years are Class
A fire rated, so you don't have to worry about that.
Your stucco on your home is a Class A coverage material,
(02:53):
so you don't have to worry about that. Okay, So
all of this stuff about, well you better paint your
house in fireproof paint like Okay, you could, but it's very,
very expensive. So what we're zeroing in on is how
a fire approaches your home and what happens when it
approaches your home. We've talked about the embers. The first
(03:14):
thing when we discuss when the fire is arriving, is
this the zone zero or what is now popular becoming,
you know, the the first five feet away from the
walls of your home. Now, I got to tell you,
I am all for getting zone zero defensible, meaning getting
(03:38):
the junk that's leaning up against your house away, getting
stuff that embers could easily ignite and become a problem
away from your house. However, I'm an architectural designer. I
am not in favor of the current move food out there,
(04:01):
especially in California, to make county for county, to make
a law by which you cannot have anything combustible within
five feet of your house potentially combustible on any way,
shape or form. In other words, the defensible space laws
that are being proposed right now all concrete, no items,
(04:24):
no plants, no furniture, and if it's not concrete, then
it's gravel period. The end five feet around your house. Now,
you might at first think, well, Deane, I've got that
down my side yards, in my backyard anyway. Yeah, would
you like it on your front of your house as well?
Would you like a five foot sidewalk essentially ringing the
(04:46):
front side of your home, pushing all that plane. No, no,
we're talking about surrounding the house with this. And here
is why. In my opinion, it's just my opinion, but
it's an informed one. That's overreach. Okay, I'm all for it.
I've been preaching getting your defensible zone in order for
(05:08):
years and year. For as long as I've been doing this,
I've been preaching it. So just know that I'm all
in favor of it. But the whole Okay, you can't
have anything, Okay, that's that's that's insurance company speak. That's
insurance companies overreaching so that they don't have to pay
out as much money or worry about it or so
on and so forth, because they don't want anybody to have
(05:30):
the choice of deviating from that. But it's just it's overkill. Okay.
Number One, well watered green plant material near your home
is not readily combustible material. Okay, if flame, if the
flames arrive at your house and are burning at eleven
hundred degrees, okay, anything could dry out and go up.
(05:51):
But I'm just saying all of that approach embers all
of that stuff, even fire that's in your yard. The
fact of the matter is that well watered, well cared for,
well kept vegetation like lawns. When was the last time
you saw in a mass fire event, just a green
lawn just you know, in flames, you don't, Okay, it's
(06:14):
not how it happens. Plus, like I said earlier in
the show, fires burn houses burn up, they don't burn down. Okay.
So flames want to go up, they want to go
up the walls, and they want to affect things that
are above. So my concern, my primary concern for that
zero defensible space. That zone zero is anything that will
(06:35):
promote flames to lick up under those overhung eaves, because
those eaves are your roof rafters sticking out kind of
expose and that is up that is in receipt of
all of that growing heat of all the flame and
so on. My second concern about the zero defensible zone
(06:58):
zero is window glass, window glass, and just removing vegetation
five feet away from the house is not going to
stop the heat of a you know, eleven hundred degree
flame shattering window glass. Window glass is and we talk
about this on the other side of the break. Window
glass is one of those most vulnerable areas. So instead
(07:21):
of buying all the fireproof paint to paint the stucco
that's already Class A rated, instead of replacing a roof
that's already Class A rated, let's talk about spending some
money on the right kind of window glass. If your
home is in an open space and susceptible to that
kind of stuff, we'll talk about that when we come back.
So much more to come your Home with Dean Sharp
(07:43):
the House Whispers.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
We're talking midsummer fire season prep, and we're talking about
it right now in the midsummer, because we're only a
few weeks away from fire season and by the time
it roll around, that is not the time to get
your home ready. Now today, Now is the time to
get your home ready for the hardening of your home
(08:10):
so that you don't become a statistic this year. And
because it's happened a lot happening, an awful lot. And
I hope that you've gathered from the program thus far
that the safe and sane and rational conversation here is
not about stream measures like you know what, we should
just tear our home down and have an all concrete
(08:33):
walled house because I saw a news report where a
whole neighborhood burnt down except for this guy's concrete house,
and so that's the only house that's going to survive.
I guess a wildfire or a mass suburban fire is
the guy with the concrete house, who has steel studs
and concrete and no living things around his house. That's
what we have to do. Because I saw a news report,
(08:56):
and you know, on the news, then there it is. Yeah,
I mean, that was true. The whole neighborhood burned down
and the guy's concrete house still standing, and good for him,
And yeah, it's because concrete. But also it's what we're
not talking about on those news reports, which are too
short and just skim across the surface. What we're not
(09:18):
talking about is the fact that most homes have most areas,
most surfaces class A fire rated already, and so the
problem is not most of your home. Just like I
would tell you that if you have a big, beautiful
boat and you slap it in the water and it
(09:38):
starts to sink, well, was the problem everything about that
boat or was it the fact that even though you
had a big beautiful boat and a big beautiful hull
and lovely this and lovely that, Yeah, there were also
fifteen small holes drilled into the hull of the boat
where the water came in. So the point being, I
(10:01):
just want you to plug the holes in the boat.
That's it. Okay, we don't have to buy a new boat.
We don't have to redo everything on this boat. It's
got to plug the holes and it'll float. And that's
the idea. Okay, that's the idea. So is your roof
a disaster well, I mean, if you've kissue papered your roof,
(10:22):
yeah it's probably vulnerable to fire. If you still have
would shake shingles on your roof and you're in a
high fire zone or the state of California for that matter,
then yeah, that's a problem. And no, you don't have
to hold off any longer because you think to yourself, well,
there's nothing that looks like shake shingle anymore, and it'll
(10:46):
ruin the look of my home. That's not true. I
can give you the name here, Da Vinci Da Vinci
Roofing Materials. Go check that out. They make a Class
A resin shingle looks like like a wood shingle on
your home, but it's not, and it matches and it
can you know, it conforms to all fire regulations. So
(11:09):
the point is roofs class A fire rated. You don't
have to mess with your roof. Okay, If you got
vents on your roof that aren't emberproof, you should mberproof
those vents. If you've got vents in the side of
your eaves that are emberproof, you guys should have emberproof
those vents. But the roof material itself, nobody has stuff.
(11:29):
I mean in the latest fire, I saw some footage
where they literally were saying that this roof is vulnerable,
and because they showed a shot where the whole roof
that flames were just burning through the roof, burning through
the roof, it was the attic that was on fire,
burning up through the rafters. Homes burn up, they don't
(11:52):
burn down. Okay. I also saw in that same coverage
nobody said anything about it, a flaming palm tree had
fallen onto somebody's roof. And guess what was not happening.
The roof was not on fire. It wasn't because flames
don't burn down, they burn up. Okay. So there you go.
Stucco Class A fire rated not a worry. Your roof
(12:14):
Class A fire rated likely not a worry. The vents
those are holes in the boat. Guess what else is
a hole in the boat? Windows and doors, Windows and doors.
If you want to spend money fire hardening your home
and you live anywhere near or are facing an open space,
you absolutely should at least take the windows on the
(12:34):
side of the house that faces the open space and
consider changing them out to fire windows. Now you're like, again, Dean,
what's it? I'm just gonna screw up the whole Look,
I had no. The only difference between a fire window
and a non fire window is the glass, not the
window itself. We're not talking about special coatings on the window,
(12:56):
or the the the styles or the mule or the
sashes or the trit No, We're talking about the glass.
Because this is what happens when a fire approaches your home.
It it puts off high heat, and standard annealed glass
annealed is just that's the process that goes through standard glass.
We're talking about regular old glass, okay, is created at
(13:20):
relatively low temperatures, and so when the heat of a
fire is nearby, within a few feet, Okay, this is
why that five foot barrier. I mean, if you've got
flames at a thousand degrees five feet away from a window,
guess what, It doesn't matter that it can't jump across there.
The window is going to superheat on one side, on
the inside of that window glass. It's cool because the
(13:43):
inside of your house is cooler. And the differential between
the outside expanding so much under the heat and the
inside not expanding at all will make the glass shatter.
And when the glass shatters, guess what there's a hole
in the boat for the flames to get inside. This
right on the other side of the break. So much
more to come your Home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
All right, fireproofing your home. We are just trying to
patch the holes in the boat, as it were. Right,
Not every surface on your home needs redoing just because
you saw a news article or a news story during
the last mass fire that showed the one house that's
still standing, and therefore everybody's house should look like that house.
(14:35):
Not the case. Okay. One of the holes in the
boat are windows. Exterior windows. Of course, regular glass windows
annealed glass are produced at relatively low temperatures in the
old glass factory, and therefore they are subject to warpage
and expansion under the high temperatures of what sometimes a
(14:59):
wildfire can produce. Okay, So the problem with the glass
is not that it melts, it's that it shatters, and
it shatters because the outside superheats, the inside surface of
the glass does not. One side wants to expand, the
other side does not expand evenly. Therefore, the anneal glass
(15:19):
just shatters. And once it shatters and falls out of
the opening, now you have a hole in your house.
Talk about you know, emberproofing little vents. Now we're talking
about it's a big old hole in the house, and
the same flames that shattered the glass now have an
opportunity to lick up inside and get inside the house,
which is the worst place for them to be. So
(15:41):
what are fire rated windows? Fire rated windows are nothing
more than the same windows that you've got with different
glass units in them, those glass units being tempered glass units.
The tempered glass unit. A tempered glass is produced at
roughly of twelve hundred degrees fahrenheit. It's regular annealed glass
(16:04):
that goes through a reheating process, and it reached twelve
hundred degrees fahrenheit in the factory under pressure of rollers.
And that is why tempered glass. Now, tempered glass isn't
going to resist every degree of heat, but the kind
of heat that normally a fire burning just outside your
house is producing is typically the kind of heat that
(16:26):
will not break tempered glass. Just you know, it's like, oh,
you know, hey, I had this temperature when I was born.
This is not a big deal. And that's the idea. Okay,
So that's a hole in the house that you can fix. Now,
I hear you saying. Right now, some of you are like, well,
d that's not in my budget to replace all the
windows on my healthy either. Okay. Well, as you save
(16:49):
up and you think about the next transition for your home,
make sure that that's part of your thinking. In the meantime,
you can still do something to patch the hole in
that boat. And that is this. There are window films available. Okay,
I say window films. I want you to think in
terms of tinting, like you know, tinting a car window.
(17:12):
There are window films available for your residential windows that
and they can be tinted if you want them to be,
but they can be completely invisible and clear and have
no visible effect on the window whatsoever. But there are
temperature resistant, fire proof window films available for the windows
in your home. Okay. And uh. And some of you
(17:35):
are thinking, well, you know, but they bubble and they're
you know, they end up looking gross after a whatnot
not if they're installed properly, and they these window films
are a last ditch, you know, line of defense. They
are on the inside glass of your home, not in
the outside glass. A lot of them, and uh, they
will not stop the heat of the fire from shattering
(17:59):
your annealed because they're not changing. Everything that I just
said about the glass is true, and that glass is
still going to shatter, But the window film is stuck
to that annealed glass, and the window film itself is
heat resistant, which means it won't melt away when the
fire is there. So what happens The glass shatters, but
(18:21):
the film holds it in place. Shattered but held in place,
so ergo, no hole in the boat. It's still not
a hole in your house because the heat resistant window
film is holding the glass in place. That's considerably less
expensive than changing out all your windows to fire glass,
(18:43):
which is the best option. But if you don't have
that option right now, and you're still concerned about what
can you do to fire hard in your home, then
guess what you do that when heat and fire resistant
window films, at least on the glass that is facing
the open space where there's a problem. So are you
catching the vibe that I'm laying down here today, right?
(19:05):
We want to plug the holes in the boat. We
don't want to just tear your house down and start
all over again, because we don't need to and we
don't need to over react. We don't need to take
all the plants out of your yard. All that does
is create a greater heat island in this city. The
more trees and lush plants we take away from residential homes,
(19:26):
the hotter it becomes, and the more prone we are
for wildfires to begin with. If we all plant more vegetation,
more trees, especially, more trees especially, we can lower the
average temperature in the entire region by a degree or two. Yes,
it's possible, It's been done. Melbourne, Australia is kind of
(19:48):
the sister zone to southern California, and they committed to
this after they went through their worst fire season ever
several years ago. They committed to increasing the tree canopy
cover in that city in that region by fifty percent,
And long before they reached fifty percent, they had already
(20:09):
lowered the average temperature in Melbourne by I think a
degree and a half to two degrees, which makes a
massive difference in fire susceptibility. So the answer is not
getting rid of plants, well watered, well nourished green plants
not the answer. In fact, it's just the opposite. That's
why we don't need to take these extreme measures to
(20:31):
desertify essentially our homes so that it's just nothing but
rock and concrete all around. Not the answer. The answer
is understanding our homes points of vulnerability, the eaves, overhanging
the house, the windows, the vents, and plugging the holes
in the boat. That's all it comes down to. All right,
(20:52):
I've got one more thing to talk about, the eaves.
To wrap up this whole thing. We'll do it right
after the break.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
You're listening to you Home with Dean Sharp on demand
from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Here to help you transform your ordinary house into an
extraordinary home. And you know what extraordinary means means still
standing after a wildfire. That's an extraordinary home. So we've
been talking midsummer fire season prep today. Fire season is
not right now, right at this moment, not technically, but
we're just weeks away. Things are drying out, things are
(21:25):
warming up. Now is the time to make those changes
to get your home safe and sound hardened from We
never say the word fire proof, okay, because you know
what that's just it's overreach. It's overreach. It's over confidence. Okay,
not even by the way, By the way, not even
those concrete structures out there are fire proof. There is
(21:49):
a level and type of fire that can take it down,
that can do major damage. Okay. So we don't say fireproof,
but we say fire hardened because the truth is that
fire fire itself, the fire line, okay, moves pretty fast.
It does. It's eaten up materials, it's eating up combustible materials,
(22:10):
whatever it can feed on, and it either can feed
or it can't feed. And winds, especially in high wind conditions,
when things are that, they're worst. Okay. If there's one
I guess I don't know silver lining about that. It
means that the fire line moves quickly through your area. Okay.
So we're not talking about flames just sitting there burning
(22:33):
and burning and burning and burning for hours at a
time trying to get into your home. That just is
not realistic. If you've ever lit a fire with logs
in your fireplace, you realize it ain't long before you
got to put another log on the fire or it's
going out. Okay, So fire lines move quickly, and so
what we talk about is fire hardening. We want your
(22:54):
home hardened against fire enough so that for the time
that it is passed sing by, it is resistant enough
not to ignite. Class A fire rating is not fireproof.
Its class A, which means it's got a good hour
resistance to it. Okay, and it passes by. So the walls,
(23:16):
the roof, the windows, all of this, we're plugging the
holes in the boat. So at the very beginning of
the program, I started this whole topic by illustrating that
you know, there are fire retardant, fire proof, fire resistant
(23:37):
paints out on the market. These paints are very expensive,
very expensive, but they're available and they do a good job.
Most of them are again big word into messint, which
means when they experience heat, they kind of foam out
and they close off their own pores and they form
kind of a protective thermal barrier between the fire and
(24:00):
the surface that they're attached to. They're brilliant, okay, they
really do. They save structures that are painted with them.
But like we said, they're very expensive, crazy expensive. Okay,
we're talking about hundreds of dollars for just a couple
of gallons of this paint. So do I. And they're
(24:21):
not the most designer, chic, lovely colored paints out there, okay,
And I'm not saying that you can't get them in
a color. I'm just saying they don't have the kind
of design latitude. So am I sacrificing your home as
a designer because I want everything to look so fantastic
that I don't really care if it burns down? Of
course not, I'm a I'm What I'm telling you is
(24:43):
that if you've got a stucco house, or you've got
a fiber concrete, fiber embedded siding, how do you have
a Class A fire rated surface on the outside of
your house. You don't need to necessarily spend hundreds or
thousands of more dollars putting a fire resistant on top
of that. But where could you put fire resistant paint?
(25:05):
Well in that most vulnerable spot, the eves, the overhang
where you look up at the underside of your roof,
and what you see there are your roof rafters sticking
out of the house. You see facier board. You see
what we call starterboard, tongue and groove, starterboard updown. Now
some of you, a few of you have stucco wrapped
(25:25):
in and you have a closed eve. All right, Well,
you've got A Class A fire rated material closing off
the eve. The facier board is not closed off, and
for most people we have open e open exposed to wood.
If I'm going to spend money on expensive into messent
(25:46):
fire resistant paint, I'm going to put it where it counts.
I'm going to paint out my eves and my facierboard
with that paint and let the rest of the house
stand in its Class A fire rating as it is.
So what am I saying? I am saying you, my friend,
if you run down the checklist and you've got ember
resistant vents for your attic and or crawl space by
(26:08):
the way, anywhere there's a vent leading into space in
your house, right, you can find those at brand guard
Vents dot com. Brandguard vents dot com. You've got Class
A fire rated sighting, which if you have stucco that is,
and if you've got a concrete embedded or non wood
siding it very likely is because the code requires it.
You've got Class A fire rated roofing, which even a
(26:32):
simple asphalt composite shingle is Class A fire rated if
if it was manufactured in the last forty years. If
you've got Class A fire rated doors. If you've put
in fire rated glass in your windows or at least
class afire rated film, go to three M dot com
check that out. Then we take the most vulnerable spot,
(26:54):
which is that overhang of eve, and we paint it
an into messin exterior coding. Go to firefree dot com
check out the kind of stuff I'm talking about firefree
dot com. Then you have essentially fire hardened your house
in the most defective efficient, non you know, cost gouging
(27:17):
way possible, and you are sitting now in a structure
that you can be confident is a safe structure. Now
are there other things? Yeah, clear your defensible space. If
you live next to an open space, you're required to
clear out one hundred feet or so of that defensible space.
Make sure that happens. Make sure you don't have junks
setting up against your house. Make sure that if you've
(27:40):
got plants, that they're well watered and that they're green,
and that they're verdant and they're happy and healthy. Okay,
all of that leads to homes that survive wildfire disasters,
and all of the homes that you've seen recently not survive.
Guess what it's not. Because the whole house was wrong
(28:00):
because there were holes in the boat. That's what makes
boat sink. Ask the Titanic crew about that. You can
have an awesomely built structure with the wrong holes in
the wrong place and there you go. All right, my friends,
that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining
us on the program. I'm gonna leave you with this
one simple thought. Have you looked outside. It is a
(28:21):
gorgeous day here in southern California. Get out there and
get busy building yourself a beautiful life. We'll see here
next week. This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM
six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific
time and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time,
(28:42):
or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. We
are having our Midsummer fire season prep show. Yeah, I know,
it's a lot, and we talk about it a lot,
and in southern California, especially especially this year, because very
(00:22):
close by we've had the Alta Diana, the Eden Fire,
We've had the Palisades Fire, the largest and most expensive,
most destructive residential fires in I believe us history. Just
it's a lot. It's a lot, I know, and believe me,
there are so many other things I'd rather talk to
(00:42):
you about than getting ready for some disastrous situation. But
here's the point, Because I want to talk to you
about all those things. I want to talk about your
architecture and transforming your home in a way that just
becomes this beautiful oasis of your life that you love,
that inspires you, that launches you out into the world.
Because I want all of those things for you. I'd
(01:04):
like your home to still be standing, and so we
want to keep it in place. That's job one, and
so as a result, we will talk about fire hardening
your home. Now so far on the program, I have
divided the concept of fire hardening into two phases, when
the fire is near but not at you, and when
(01:28):
the flames are here. Okay, and as you know, if
you've been listening, if you haven't, if you didn't hear
the first part of the show, make sure you go
to the podcast and listen to the whole show because
so much critical information. I've talked about the fact that
eight out of ten homes burn in a wild fire
because they ignite before the fire arrives. We've talked about
(01:49):
the vulnerability of at events and the need for retrofitting
your home with ember proof, ember resistant at events. We've
talked about all of that. Now I want to transition
to when the fire is here and start having that conversation.
(02:10):
So we've done our best and there's a little bit
of transitional space here where where we're talking both. Okay,
the embers, we've already discussed that they land on your roof,
No big deal, all right, unless you have an old
wood shingle roof, which hardly anybody does anymore, and by
the way, you shouldn't have, especially if you live in
(02:31):
southern California, because there are so many great alternatives that
are class A fire rated. All asphalt shingle roofs, which
are the majority of roofs in the area. All asphalt
shingle roofs installed in the last forty years are Class
A fire rated, so you don't have to worry about that.
Your stucco on your home is a Class A coverage material,
(02:53):
so you don't have to worry about that. Okay, So
all of this stuff about, well you better paint your
house in fireproof paint like Okay, you could, but it's very,
very expensive. So what we're zeroing in on is how
a fire approaches your home and what happens when it
approaches your home. We've talked about the embers. The first
(03:14):
thing when we discuss when the fire is arriving, is
this the zone zero or what is now popular becoming,
you know, the the first five feet away from the
walls of your home. Now, I got to tell you,
I am all for getting zone zero defensible, meaning getting
(03:38):
the junk that's leaning up against your house away, getting
stuff that embers could easily ignite and become a problem
away from your house. However, I'm an architectural designer. I
am not in favor of the current move food out there,
(04:01):
especially in California, to make county for county, to make
a law by which you cannot have anything combustible within
five feet of your house potentially combustible on any way,
shape or form. In other words, the defensible space laws
that are being proposed right now all concrete, no items,
(04:24):
no plants, no furniture, and if it's not concrete, then
it's gravel period. The end five feet around your house. Now,
you might at first think, well, Deane, I've got that
down my side yards, in my backyard anyway. Yeah, would
you like it on your front of your house as well?
Would you like a five foot sidewalk essentially ringing the
(04:46):
front side of your home, pushing all that plane. No, no,
we're talking about surrounding the house with this. And here
is why. In my opinion, it's just my opinion, but
it's an informed one. That's overreach. Okay, I'm all for it.
I've been preaching getting your defensible zone in order for
(05:08):
years and year. For as long as I've been doing this,
I've been preaching it. So just know that I'm all
in favor of it. But the whole Okay, you can't
have anything, Okay, that's that's that's insurance company speak. That's
insurance companies overreaching so that they don't have to pay
out as much money or worry about it or so
on and so forth, because they don't want anybody to have
(05:30):
the choice of deviating from that. But it's just it's overkill. Okay.
Number One, well watered green plant material near your home
is not readily combustible material. Okay, if flame, if the
flames arrive at your house and are burning at eleven
hundred degrees, okay, anything could dry out and go up.
(05:51):
But I'm just saying all of that approach embers all
of that stuff, even fire that's in your yard. The
fact of the matter is that well watered, well cared for,
well kept vegetation like lawns. When was the last time
you saw in a mass fire event, just a green
lawn just you know, in flames, you don't, Okay, it's
(06:14):
not how it happens. Plus, like I said earlier in
the show, fires burn houses burn up, they don't burn down. Okay.
So flames want to go up, they want to go
up the walls, and they want to affect things that
are above. So my concern, my primary concern for that
zero defensible space. That zone zero is anything that will
(06:35):
promote flames to lick up under those overhung eaves, because
those eaves are your roof rafters sticking out kind of
expose and that is up that is in receipt of
all of that growing heat of all the flame and
so on. My second concern about the zero defensible zone
(06:58):
zero is window glass, window glass, and just removing vegetation
five feet away from the house is not going to
stop the heat of a you know, eleven hundred degree
flame shattering window glass. Window glass is and we talk
about this on the other side of the break. Window
glass is one of those most vulnerable areas. So instead
(07:21):
of buying all the fireproof paint to paint the stucco
that's already Class A rated, instead of replacing a roof
that's already Class A rated, let's talk about spending some
money on the right kind of window glass. If your
home is in an open space and susceptible to that
kind of stuff, we'll talk about that when we come back.
So much more to come your Home with Dean Sharp
(07:43):
the House Whispers.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
We're talking midsummer fire season prep, and we're talking about
it right now in the midsummer, because we're only a
few weeks away from fire season and by the time
it roll around, that is not the time to get
your home ready. Now today, Now is the time to
get your home ready for the hardening of your home
(08:10):
so that you don't become a statistic this year. And
because it's happened a lot happening, an awful lot. And
I hope that you've gathered from the program thus far
that the safe and sane and rational conversation here is
not about stream measures like you know what, we should
just tear our home down and have an all concrete
(08:33):
walled house because I saw a news report where a
whole neighborhood burnt down except for this guy's concrete house,
and so that's the only house that's going to survive.
I guess a wildfire or a mass suburban fire is
the guy with the concrete house, who has steel studs
and concrete and no living things around his house. That's
what we have to do. Because I saw a news report,
(08:56):
and you know, on the news, then there it is. Yeah,
I mean, that was true. The whole neighborhood burned down
and the guy's concrete house still standing, and good for him,
And yeah, it's because concrete. But also it's what we're
not talking about on those news reports, which are too
short and just skim across the surface. What we're not
(09:18):
talking about is the fact that most homes have most areas,
most surfaces class A fire rated already, and so the
problem is not most of your home. Just like I
would tell you that if you have a big, beautiful
boat and you slap it in the water and it
(09:38):
starts to sink, well, was the problem everything about that
boat or was it the fact that even though you
had a big beautiful boat and a big beautiful hull
and lovely this and lovely that, Yeah, there were also
fifteen small holes drilled into the hull of the boat
where the water came in. So the point being, I
(10:01):
just want you to plug the holes in the boat.
That's it. Okay, we don't have to buy a new boat.
We don't have to redo everything on this boat. It's
got to plug the holes and it'll float. And that's
the idea. Okay, that's the idea. So is your roof
a disaster well, I mean, if you've kissue papered your roof,
(10:22):
yeah it's probably vulnerable to fire. If you still have
would shake shingles on your roof and you're in a
high fire zone or the state of California for that matter,
then yeah, that's a problem. And no, you don't have
to hold off any longer because you think to yourself, well,
there's nothing that looks like shake shingle anymore, and it'll
(10:46):
ruin the look of my home. That's not true. I
can give you the name here, Da Vinci Da Vinci
Roofing Materials. Go check that out. They make a Class
A resin shingle looks like like a wood shingle on
your home, but it's not, and it matches and it
can you know, it conforms to all fire regulations. So
(11:09):
the point is roofs class A fire rated. You don't
have to mess with your roof. Okay, If you got
vents on your roof that aren't emberproof, you should mberproof
those vents. If you've got vents in the side of
your eaves that are emberproof, you guys should have emberproof
those vents. But the roof material itself, nobody has stuff.
(11:29):
I mean in the latest fire, I saw some footage
where they literally were saying that this roof is vulnerable,
and because they showed a shot where the whole roof
that flames were just burning through the roof, burning through
the roof, it was the attic that was on fire,
burning up through the rafters. Homes burn up, they don't
(11:52):
burn down. Okay. I also saw in that same coverage
nobody said anything about it, a flaming palm tree had
fallen onto somebody's roof. And guess what was not happening.
The roof was not on fire. It wasn't because flames
don't burn down, they burn up. Okay. So there you go.
Stucco Class A fire rated not a worry. Your roof
(12:14):
Class A fire rated likely not a worry. The vents
those are holes in the boat. Guess what else is
a hole in the boat? Windows and doors, Windows and doors.
If you want to spend money fire hardening your home
and you live anywhere near or are facing an open space,
you absolutely should at least take the windows on the
(12:34):
side of the house that faces the open space and
consider changing them out to fire windows. Now you're like, again, Dean,
what's it? I'm just gonna screw up the whole Look,
I had no. The only difference between a fire window
and a non fire window is the glass, not the
window itself. We're not talking about special coatings on the window,
(12:56):
or the the the styles or the mule or the
sashes or the trit No, We're talking about the glass.
Because this is what happens when a fire approaches your home.
It it puts off high heat, and standard annealed glass
annealed is just that's the process that goes through standard glass.
We're talking about regular old glass, okay, is created at
(13:20):
relatively low temperatures, and so when the heat of a
fire is nearby, within a few feet, Okay, this is
why that five foot barrier. I mean, if you've got
flames at a thousand degrees five feet away from a window,
guess what, It doesn't matter that it can't jump across there.
The window is going to superheat on one side, on
the inside of that window glass. It's cool because the
(13:43):
inside of your house is cooler. And the differential between
the outside expanding so much under the heat and the
inside not expanding at all will make the glass shatter.
And when the glass shatters, guess what there's a hole
in the boat for the flames to get inside. This
right on the other side of the break. So much
more to come your Home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
All right, fireproofing your home. We are just trying to
patch the holes in the boat, as it were. Right,
Not every surface on your home needs redoing just because
you saw a news article or a news story during
the last mass fire that showed the one house that's
still standing, and therefore everybody's house should look like that house.
(14:35):
Not the case. Okay. One of the holes in the
boat are windows. Exterior windows. Of course, regular glass windows
annealed glass are produced at relatively low temperatures in the
old glass factory, and therefore they are subject to warpage
and expansion under the high temperatures of what sometimes a
(14:59):
wildfire can produce. Okay, So the problem with the glass
is not that it melts, it's that it shatters, and
it shatters because the outside superheats, the inside surface of
the glass does not. One side wants to expand, the
other side does not expand evenly. Therefore, the anneal glass
(15:19):
just shatters. And once it shatters and falls out of
the opening, now you have a hole in your house.
Talk about you know, emberproofing little vents. Now we're talking
about it's a big old hole in the house, and
the same flames that shattered the glass now have an
opportunity to lick up inside and get inside the house,
which is the worst place for them to be. So
(15:41):
what are fire rated windows? Fire rated windows are nothing
more than the same windows that you've got with different
glass units in them, those glass units being tempered glass units.
The tempered glass unit. A tempered glass is produced at
roughly of twelve hundred degrees fahrenheit. It's regular annealed glass
(16:04):
that goes through a reheating process, and it reached twelve
hundred degrees fahrenheit in the factory under pressure of rollers.
And that is why tempered glass. Now, tempered glass isn't
going to resist every degree of heat, but the kind
of heat that normally a fire burning just outside your
house is producing is typically the kind of heat that
(16:26):
will not break tempered glass. Just you know, it's like, oh,
you know, hey, I had this temperature when I was born.
This is not a big deal. And that's the idea. Okay,
So that's a hole in the house that you can fix. Now,
I hear you saying. Right now, some of you are like, well,
d that's not in my budget to replace all the
windows on my healthy either. Okay. Well, as you save
(16:49):
up and you think about the next transition for your home,
make sure that that's part of your thinking. In the meantime,
you can still do something to patch the hole in
that boat. And that is this. There are window films available. Okay,
I say window films. I want you to think in
terms of tinting, like you know, tinting a car window.
(17:12):
There are window films available for your residential windows that
and they can be tinted if you want them to be,
but they can be completely invisible and clear and have
no visible effect on the window whatsoever. But there are
temperature resistant, fire proof window films available for the windows
in your home. Okay. And uh. And some of you
(17:35):
are thinking, well, you know, but they bubble and they're
you know, they end up looking gross after a whatnot
not if they're installed properly, and they these window films
are a last ditch, you know, line of defense. They
are on the inside glass of your home, not in
the outside glass. A lot of them, and uh, they
will not stop the heat of the fire from shattering
(17:59):
your annealed because they're not changing. Everything that I just
said about the glass is true, and that glass is
still going to shatter, But the window film is stuck
to that annealed glass, and the window film itself is
heat resistant, which means it won't melt away when the
fire is there. So what happens The glass shatters, but
(18:21):
the film holds it in place. Shattered but held in place,
so ergo, no hole in the boat. It's still not
a hole in your house because the heat resistant window
film is holding the glass in place. That's considerably less
expensive than changing out all your windows to fire glass,
(18:43):
which is the best option. But if you don't have
that option right now, and you're still concerned about what
can you do to fire hard in your home, then
guess what you do that when heat and fire resistant
window films, at least on the glass that is facing
the open space where there's a problem. So are you
catching the vibe that I'm laying down here today, right?
(19:05):
We want to plug the holes in the boat. We
don't want to just tear your house down and start
all over again, because we don't need to and we
don't need to over react. We don't need to take
all the plants out of your yard. All that does
is create a greater heat island in this city. The
more trees and lush plants we take away from residential homes,
(19:26):
the hotter it becomes, and the more prone we are
for wildfires to begin with. If we all plant more vegetation,
more trees, especially, more trees especially, we can lower the
average temperature in the entire region by a degree or two. Yes,
it's possible, It's been done. Melbourne, Australia is kind of
(19:48):
the sister zone to southern California, and they committed to
this after they went through their worst fire season ever
several years ago. They committed to increasing the tree canopy
cover in that city in that region by fifty percent,
And long before they reached fifty percent, they had already
(20:09):
lowered the average temperature in Melbourne by I think a
degree and a half to two degrees, which makes a
massive difference in fire susceptibility. So the answer is not
getting rid of plants, well watered, well nourished green plants
not the answer. In fact, it's just the opposite. That's
why we don't need to take these extreme measures to
(20:31):
desertify essentially our homes so that it's just nothing but
rock and concrete all around. Not the answer. The answer
is understanding our homes points of vulnerability, the eaves, overhanging
the house, the windows, the vents, and plugging the holes
in the boat. That's all it comes down to. All right,
(20:52):
I've got one more thing to talk about, the eaves.
To wrap up this whole thing. We'll do it right
after the break.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
You're listening to you Home with Dean Sharp on demand
from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Here to help you transform your ordinary house into an
extraordinary home. And you know what extraordinary means means still
standing after a wildfire. That's an extraordinary home. So we've
been talking midsummer fire season prep today. Fire season is
not right now, right at this moment, not technically, but
we're just weeks away. Things are drying out, things are
(21:25):
warming up. Now is the time to make those changes
to get your home safe and sound hardened from We
never say the word fire proof, okay, because you know
what that's just it's overreach. It's overreach. It's over confidence. Okay,
not even by the way, By the way, not even
those concrete structures out there are fire proof. There is
(21:49):
a level and type of fire that can take it down,
that can do major damage. Okay. So we don't say fireproof,
but we say fire hardened because the truth is that
fire fire itself, the fire line, okay, moves pretty fast.
It does. It's eaten up materials, it's eating up combustible materials,
(22:10):
whatever it can feed on, and it either can feed
or it can't feed. And winds, especially in high wind conditions,
when things are that, they're worst. Okay. If there's one
I guess I don't know silver lining about that. It
means that the fire line moves quickly through your area. Okay.
So we're not talking about flames just sitting there burning
(22:33):
and burning and burning and burning for hours at a
time trying to get into your home. That just is
not realistic. If you've ever lit a fire with logs
in your fireplace, you realize it ain't long before you
got to put another log on the fire or it's
going out. Okay, So fire lines move quickly, and so
what we talk about is fire hardening. We want your
(22:54):
home hardened against fire enough so that for the time
that it is passed sing by, it is resistant enough
not to ignite. Class A fire rating is not fireproof.
Its class A, which means it's got a good hour
resistance to it. Okay, and it passes by. So the walls,
(23:16):
the roof, the windows, all of this, we're plugging the
holes in the boat. So at the very beginning of
the program, I started this whole topic by illustrating that
you know, there are fire retardant, fire proof, fire resistant
(23:37):
paints out on the market. These paints are very expensive,
very expensive, but they're available and they do a good job.
Most of them are again big word into messint, which
means when they experience heat, they kind of foam out
and they close off their own pores and they form
kind of a protective thermal barrier between the fire and
(24:00):
the surface that they're attached to. They're brilliant, okay, they
really do. They save structures that are painted with them.
But like we said, they're very expensive, crazy expensive. Okay,
we're talking about hundreds of dollars for just a couple
of gallons of this paint. So do I. And they're
(24:21):
not the most designer, chic, lovely colored paints out there, okay,
And I'm not saying that you can't get them in
a color. I'm just saying they don't have the kind
of design latitude. So am I sacrificing your home as
a designer because I want everything to look so fantastic
that I don't really care if it burns down? Of
course not, I'm a I'm What I'm telling you is
(24:43):
that if you've got a stucco house, or you've got
a fiber concrete, fiber embedded siding, how do you have
a Class A fire rated surface on the outside of
your house. You don't need to necessarily spend hundreds or
thousands of more dollars putting a fire resistant on top
of that. But where could you put fire resistant paint?
(25:05):
Well in that most vulnerable spot, the eves, the overhang
where you look up at the underside of your roof,
and what you see there are your roof rafters sticking
out of the house. You see facier board. You see
what we call starterboard, tongue and groove, starterboard updown. Now
some of you, a few of you have stucco wrapped
(25:25):
in and you have a closed eve. All right, Well,
you've got A Class A fire rated material closing off
the eve. The facier board is not closed off, and
for most people we have open e open exposed to wood.
If I'm going to spend money on expensive into messent
(25:46):
fire resistant paint, I'm going to put it where it counts.
I'm going to paint out my eves and my facierboard
with that paint and let the rest of the house
stand in its Class A fire rating as it is.
So what am I saying? I am saying you, my friend,
if you run down the checklist and you've got ember
resistant vents for your attic and or crawl space by
(26:08):
the way, anywhere there's a vent leading into space in
your house, right, you can find those at brand guard
Vents dot com. Brandguard vents dot com. You've got Class
A fire rated sighting, which if you have stucco that is,
and if you've got a concrete embedded or non wood
siding it very likely is because the code requires it.
You've got Class A fire rated roofing, which even a
(26:32):
simple asphalt composite shingle is Class A fire rated if
if it was manufactured in the last forty years. If
you've got Class A fire rated doors. If you've put
in fire rated glass in your windows or at least
class afire rated film, go to three M dot com
check that out. Then we take the most vulnerable spot,
(26:54):
which is that overhang of eve, and we paint it
an into messin exterior coding. Go to firefree dot com
check out the kind of stuff I'm talking about firefree
dot com. Then you have essentially fire hardened your house
in the most defective efficient, non you know, cost gouging
(27:17):
way possible, and you are sitting now in a structure
that you can be confident is a safe structure. Now
are there other things? Yeah, clear your defensible space. If
you live next to an open space, you're required to
clear out one hundred feet or so of that defensible space.
Make sure that happens. Make sure you don't have junks
setting up against your house. Make sure that if you've
(27:40):
got plants, that they're well watered and that they're green,
and that they're verdant and they're happy and healthy. Okay,
all of that leads to homes that survive wildfire disasters,
and all of the homes that you've seen recently not survive.
Guess what it's not. Because the whole house was wrong
(28:00):
because there were holes in the boat. That's what makes
boat sink. Ask the Titanic crew about that. You can
have an awesomely built structure with the wrong holes in
the wrong place and there you go. All right, my friends,
that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining
us on the program. I'm gonna leave you with this
one simple thought. Have you looked outside. It is a
(28:21):
gorgeous day here in southern California. Get out there and
get busy building yourself a beautiful life. We'll see here
next week. This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM
six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific
time and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time,
(28:42):
or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Home with Dean Sharp News
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