Paradise, Calif., Mayor Steve Crowder has provided firsthand insights on an expert panel discussing wildfire recovery hosted by the Center for California Real Estate (CCRE), telling attendees he expects his town’s recovery from the 2018 Camp Fire to last 20 years.
The panel, “The Road to Recovery: Rebuilding Communities After the Wildfires” also featured key policy insights, innovations and consumer tips to help inform the recovery effort in Southern California and guide individual homeowners seeking to rebuild.
Moderated by Bill Fulton from the UC San Diego Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the panel also featured non-combustible building expert Laurie C. Fisher, Founder & CEO of PHNX Development and environmental land use attorney Jennifer Hernandez, Partner at Holland & Knight.
Mayor Crowder spoke on how he expected to see an increase in recovery costs due to lack of construction workers, availability of materials and insurance: “Pre-fire we were building houses at $175 to $200 a [square] foot. Overnight we went to $300 to $350 per [square] foot.
“For people who had coverage, these houses were insured for $150 or $200 a [square] foot. It just drove [prices] up.”
Crowder said home prices and affordability are creating a different community, adding: “Our median price before the fire was $250,000. Right now, our median price is about $460,000, which in California is still affordable, but for our population, that is not affordable housing anymore.”
Laurie Fisher said she anticipates increased costs due to the impact of tariffs on materials such as lumber, steel and aluminum: “Almost all of our lumber comes from Canada, and so we’ve already seen an increase of 20 to 30 percent in lumber costs.”
Crowder said progress still has a long way to go, stating: “Our rebuild is a 20-year rebuild, and we know that. We’re about 33 percent rebuilt now – about 350 [homes] a year, a really good pace. We’ll never be back to 26,000 people; we will be a town of 20,000 when everything’s said and done.”
Jennifer Hernandez urged communities to think about equity and affordability when planning to rebuild. She said the state’s legislative focus on urban density will not yield the type of affordable housing needed statewide.
Hernandez shared: “The only solution that works for housing is building higher density, [but] a Terner Center study from December 2023 said that does not pencil for almost anywhere. That typology results in $3,500 per month rental or worse for a one-bedroom, and that is just not housing for all.”
Hernandez said building along urban boundaries and into open space, if done correctly, can help mitigate impacts to the rest of the community.
She added: “We must have urban and building standard compliance, which make these new communities places of refuge, places where people evacuate to, places where firefighters stage when the rest of the region and older [homes] from the ’70s and ’80s are being burned up.
“We don’t have the money to retrofit every home built between 1930 and 1985. In our urban areas, and suburban areas, the best solutions are edge communities that are fire safe and resilient.”
Panelists said that despite new fire-hardening products and legislative efforts in the last decade, not much process innovation has taken place over the years. “
Moderator Bill Fulton, shared:” We still deliver construction materials to construction sites the same way we did 70 years ago,” citing insights from a recent National Housing Supply Summit in Washington, DC.
While fire-resistant building materials have seen substantial growth, standardization in what’s considered fire-resistant is essential, especially for insurance considerations.
Laurie Fisher acknowledged this: “There is going to have to be standardization – something you can take to your insurance company that is a certification that says, ‘I did this and that’ and these mitigation measures could reduce your insurance costs.”
Mayor Crowder compared the Southern California Palisades fire to 2018’s Camp Fire in Paradise, citing similarities in weather conditions, fire behavior and response capabilities that continue to put communities at risk.
Crowder said: “Their fires were so similar to the rate of speed, not being able to get aircraft up, no rain – this was just what we did. It’s been six years since our fire and I’m looking around at Grass Valley and Nevada City. They are the next Paradise because nothing’s been done.”
Crowder urged communities to think about taking measures now to mitigate fire risk, adding: “The long term is home hardening, defensible space, fire-wise landscape, things that will prevent or, or at least mitigate this happening again.”
At the suburban home level, Fisher said blocking points of entry for burning embers with screens and replacing wood fencing with noncombustible fencing among important fire-hardening actions to help reduce risk – not only before a fire, but before a sale.
He concluded with the sentiment: “It will matter next time people are selling – is this house hardened? What have you done to harden this home?
“Do you have insurance? How much are you paying? Those questions are going to start affecting the value of the completed, built, developed property.”
A panel discussing wildfire recovery was hosted by the Center for California Real Estate, where Paradise, Calif., Mayor Steve Crowder spoke amongst others. The panel was moderated by Bill Fulton from the UC San Diego Department of Urban Studies and Planning.
