As California wildfires become more frequent, people will need to fireproof their homes. Here’s what it takes to do it

Steven Snyder stood by his bedroom window, gazing out as his neighborhood burned. Waves of red and orange flames and plumes of black smoke swallowed everything in sight — yet, remarkably, his house stood unscathed.

Steven Snyder stood by his bedroom window, gazing out as his neighborhood burned. Waves of red and orange flames and plumes of black smoke swallowed everything in sight — yet, remarkably, his house stood unscathed. By then, it was too late to evacuate. As the fiery chaos raged outside, Snyder felt a sense of calm. He trusted his family would be safe. When he had built his home in Camarillo in 2024, he had taken every precaution to fireproof it, a practice the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is increasingly encouraging homeowners to do. Since climate change has helped create the most flammable Earth in human history, every new wildfire season brings new reminders resilience is everything. It determines which communities burn to ashes and which ones survive. Homeowners like Snyder, living in wildfire-prone areas, are being urged by the Cal Fire to “harden” their homes, preparing them for the threat of wildfires. It can be achieved by retrofitting key parts of the home, including roofs, chimneys, vents, windows, walls, decks, patios, garages, fences, driveways, gutters, and, perhaps most importantly, clearing out a defensible space around the home. A defensible space is a buffer between the house and the surrounding area that slows and stops the spread of fire. “Our experiences, as firefighters on the ground, we see which homes are able to be saved and which ones are destroyed,” State Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant told CNN. “The research we have done really has led us to be science based in the ability to say that if you do these mitigations, you are significantly more likely to have your home survive a wildfire.”