In the two years since the Bilbrey family moved to Dulzura, fires have come uncomfortably close twice.
A few months after they’d settled in, the Border 32 fire ignited near Barrett Junction and charred more than 4,000 acres — at one point shutting down state Route 94 and forcing the family to stay with friends overnight. Then last summer, fire burned on a mountain in Tecate, near enough they could see it from their front door.
So when Chris Bilbrey spotted an electronic message sign promoting a grant that could help Dulzura homeowners protect their properties from fire, he jotted down the web address.
Bilbrey, a counselor at Santana High, figured it couldn’t hurt to apply for the grant. “Worst case is I don’t get anything,” he said. “Best case is they come out and do some work.”
Turns out it was the best case. Bilbrey’s application was approved — and the family’s home became the first in San Digeo County retrofitted to be more wildland fire resilient.
Battalion Chief Cal Hendrie explains how the base of the home was rebuilt with fiber cement boarding and the crawl space vents upgraded with ember-resistant vents. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The work was done as part of the California Wildfire Mitigation Program, a $117 million pilot launched in several California counties. The program, funded by state and federal funds, seeks to assist underserved populations in wildfire-prone areas. In San Diego County, the program is focused on Dulzura, Potrero and Campo.
After a county fire battalion chief toured Bilbrey’s home and outlined the scope of work, contractors were hired to complete the improvements, which cost about $110,000 — nearly triple the amount the state initially intended to spend per home.
Part of the money paid for a California Conservation Corps crew to create a 100-foot buffer of defensive space, removing and trimming trees and overgrown brush on the 3.25-acre lot, and installing a ring of river rock as hardscape around the home. The rest of the funds went to the contractor for labor and materials for home “hardening” upgrades.
The work cost Bilbrey nothing. Program manager Akilah Cunningham said some homeowners could be asked to pay up to 25 percent of the cost, depending on family income.
The county has around $24 million of funding to spend over the next three years. Around 50 homeowners have applied for the program so far.
At the Dulzura home, the contractor completed a list of items that transformed the manufactured house into a fire fortress. The program requires the bottom 2 feet of homes to feature non-combustible material, so wood was switched out with fiber cement boards. Workers changed out composite wood underneath a window that was “so combustible it wasn’t funny,” said San Diego County Fire Battalion Chief Cal Hendrie.
They rebuilt two wood decks in front of the home using pressure-treated lumber — wood treated with chemicals to make it less likely to catch fire. Gone were open spaces underneath the decks where leaves could accumulate and embers could ignite. They now sit on river rocks and are fitted with mesh screens to block embers.
The goal all around the house is to block paths that any flames or embers might find into the structure.
Workers replaced vents on the roof and around the foundation with ember-resistant ones and changed out vinyl window screens with aluminum ones. They put locking hinges on a fire-resistant door made of concrete board for the home’s crawl space and built a similar secured door to cover the fuse box — ensuring neither would blow open in a fire.
The final step? After all the work was done, fire-resistant foam was used to fill cracks and gaps so embers couldn’t get in. Once it dries, the caulk can be trimmed and painted to match the house. “I never would have thought about that kind of stuff,” Bilbrey said.
A fire-resistant caulk was used to plug holes and gaps. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
A history of fires
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It was March 2022 when Bilbrey and his wife, Jean, and their three kids made the move to Dulzura from Fletcher Hills.
The family wanted to buy a home with space to build an ADU for Jean’s parents. They found what they were looking for in the gray three-bedroom manufactured home, which sits just off Route 94.
“We absolutely love it,” Bilbrey said. “We love the space, we love the quiet, we love the views. It has been a great move for us.”
But living in the backcountry comes with a heightened risk of wildfires. East County regularly is blasted by high winds and hot temperatures, conditions that dry out brush and can create a tinderbox waiting for a spark.
Fire is no stranger to Dulzura, a town about 30 miles east of San Diego, and at least one blaze already scorched the land that the Bilbreys bought. A real estate agent told the family a fire had destroyed a three-car garage and an ADU on the property at some point, although the exact timing is unclear.
“When we moved in there was a huge slab of concrete where the old garage was” and remnants of the ADU, Bilbrey said. The property was overgrown with vegetation.
Now that the land has been cleared, Bilbrey said he plans to keep it maintained. He also said he feels much more aware of fire hazards thanks to many conversations he had with Hendrie, the program’s construction manager.
All exterior rubber hoses at the Dulzura home were wrapped with aluminum foil tape. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
State program takes shape
California’s effort to assist homeowners with hardening homes and establishing defensible space was authorized by state lawmakers in 2019, but it took several years for the program to take shape.
California has experienced 15 of its most destructive fires in state history since 2015, losing more than 14,500 structures just in 2020 and 2021. The mitigation program is in response to that.
“Mitigation planning and project implementation is the only path forward toward breaking the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage,” a summary of the state pilot program says.
Hardening homes and creating defensible space, the report said, “need to be present to change wildfire behavior, lower a fire’s intensity, and mitigate losses from catastrophic wildfires.”
J. Lopez, executive director of the California Wildfire Mitigation Program, said the program can improve not just the fire resiliency of a home but of a neighborhood — if enough homeowners participate.
The program originally envisioned spending about $40,000 per home on fire safety upgrades, but costs have jumped in recent years. Officials in San Diego said the $110,000 spent on the Dulzura project is more than they intend to spend on future home retrofits.
They say costs could be lower if a contractor does several home retrofits at a time, which is what is envisioned in Campo, where homes are closer together and on smaller lots than Dulzura. As contractors get familiar with the program, work likely can be finished more quickly, which means lower labor costs.
Officials would like to see more contractors bidding on the work, too.
Lopez said the program’s initial goal was to complete work on 2,500 homes in the state, but a more realistic goal might be around 2,000.
“We are building the ship as we are sailing it,” he said. “That is the challenging part. As we encounter something, we deal with it.”
‘Better shot at surviving’
Now that the work is done, Bilbrey said he feels much safer in this home.
“Like if something (were) to happen, I feel like we’ve done everything that we can to this point… I feel like my house has a much better shot at surviving if anything was to happen out in this area.”
But some potential safety hazards are difficult to spot — like the straw mat Bilbrey placed outside his metal front door. Turns out, even a welcome mat can bring an unwelcomed threat.
Hendrie the battalion chief immediately spotted the potential danger and warned the homeowner: the mat was “very flammable.”
Bilbrey removed it.
“So right now we don’t have a welcome mat because we need to find one we feel comfortable having there,” he said.