The City of Prescott’s wildfire risk manager Conrad Jackson has found himself in high demand this year.
Once the catastrophic wildfires broke out in Los Angeles County, Prescott residents of the similarly bone-dry community began looking for answers to urgent questions: Could this happen here? If it does, will my home insurance company be there for me?
Demand for Prescott’s software-based wildfire risk assessments soared after several parts of the Los Angeles area went up in flames, from four to five a month to four a day, Jackson said.
“The great thing about this computer program is I can take pictures and literally write on the picture and say, ‘Take this branch, take this branch, take this bush,’ and they get really good guidance on a lot of stuff,” he said.
In some cases these reports, kept confidential unless the homeowner chooses to release it, can answer the second question, increasingly uncertain in today’s insurance market.
“If your insurance company reaches out to you and says ‘We’re going to drop your insurance,’ they’re doing this based on the 30,000-foot view where they’ve got a model that basically puts all of Prescott in red,” Jackson said. “If you’ve got a good report, they can’t access it, but you probably want to share that with your insurance provider and say, ‘Hey, our house is in really good shape.’
“We’ve found some insurance companies will read the report and say ‘Sure, we’ll give your insurance back,’ and others don’t care, they’re pulling out of the area.”
The first rule of keeping your home as protected as it can from encroaching flames is to keep all vegetation at least 5 feet away from the structure. Jackson said homes he inspects for the program come in all stages of preparedness.
At some, “They’ve got junipers smashed up against the house, they’ve got pine trees hanging over the top of the house, piles of pine needle litter in their rain gutter. I went to one house that had 3-foot-high pine needles that the wind over decades had piled up. The owner was in tears and said, ‘What am I going to do? My insurance company says they’re going to drop me.’ And I said ‘I would too, there’s nothing safe about this house,’” he said.
“And then other folks, they just need that affirmation that, ‘I think I know what I need to do, I just need Conrad to tell me that we’re on the same page,’ and I’ll say “Yes, that’s what we need to do.’”
These evaluations delivered by Fire Aside software (with an assist from Jackson) is just one of the resources Greater Prescott homeowners can turn to for wildfire prevention and protection.
• Register for real-time emergency alerts, including about fires and evacuations, from service providers like Genasys (used by Prescott and Yavapai County) and RAVE (Prescott Valley).
• Be familiar with the Ready, Set, GO system and what each status would mean for your community.
• Prepare for evacuation by planning your route and destination and assembling an emergency kit with 72 hours worth of food and supplies.
• Prescott Fire Department and Central Arizona Fire and Medical Authority (CAFMA), which serves the towns of Prescott Valley, Dewey-Humboldt and Chino Valley and surrounding unincorporated areas, are members of Yavapai Firewise. The nonprofit commission is dedicated to reducing the area’s vulnerability to wildfire through raising awareness through public events and information campaigns. For more information visit www.yavapaifirewise.org.
