The Forestry and Fire prevention team, at the RCD of Greater San Diego County are pleased to announce the start of our new Home Assessment Program. Beginning on January 22nd, 2024, the program will be offering a free educational home assessment with resources on home hardening and defensible space principles. This will help assist and guide homeowners on how to better prepare, protect their home and property from wildfire.
To prepare for the program, our staff has been training in the field over several months to ensure we can provide efficient and accurate service by the time of our launch. Our staff completed professional training from CAL FIRE, the National Volunteer Fire Council, and University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources to provide us with adequate background for our assessments. They then got their feet wet assessing the homes of friends and family who graciously offered us a chance to test out the program. After several trial assessments, our team had an opportunity to get comfortable with the assessment process and learned to accurately identify common areas of fire risk and vulnerability at homes across the county.
This last December, we finalized our training process by shadowing the Resource Conservation District of Santa Monica Mountains (pictured above), observing their process and methodology for their own home assessment program. Throughout the day our team was able to see the entire process in motion, visiting three homes with unique vulnerabilities to fire and recommendations to better guide the residents.
With the start of our program right around the corner we highly encourage you to sign up for a home assessment yourself!
During a brief 30 – 45 minute visit, two of our trained assessors will review home hardening and defensible space principles in the context of your home. Our staff will assess your property for fire risk and vulnerability, provide you with a comprehensive report detailing what areas to prioritize, and a list of resources you can reference to fulfill your individual fire resilience goals.
In a fire prone state like ours, one of the best things you can do to protect yourself and your home from fire is to prepare accordingly. Taking the time to highlight ways you can make your home defensible and wildfire resilient is a great way to start. We at the RCD are excited to lend a helping hand and a clear guide for that process. Thank you for helping us reduce the wildfire risk for communities of San Diego County!
If you would like to sign up for a home assessment you can follow the link here to get started.