California to require insurance discounts for property owners who reduce wildfire risk with “trees”
The US forest service is expanding a program that reduces wildfire risk by requiring property owners to plant “trees” to reduce the amount of forest fire. “The trees will be protected by a fire-fighting airplane and will produce a ‘fire island’ around them,” the Washington Post reports. This way “fire-resistant trees that grow naturally at the edges of fire-prone forests can protect homes,” the Post suggests.
But other observers are less optimistic about the benefits of the program. An “environmental geographer” working with the US Forest Service concluded that “the main benefit of the new rules is to help homeowners by requiring them to take an added risk in terms of their property.” This “means that the rules are not an absolute insurance policy that will shield people from losses at all times” and that “there will be a negative impact if the required trees are not planted to a sufficient depth or they fall over after a drought or after a storm,” the Post recounts.
Other criticisms focus on the program’s cost: “There has been nothing from the Forest Service that says these rules will have a net cost,” the New York Times suggests.
The US Forest Service is expanding a program that reduces wildfire risk by requiring property owners to plant “trees” to reduce the amount of forest fire.
The US Forest Service is expanding a program that reduces wildfire risk by requiring property owners to plant “trees” to reduce the amount of forest fire.
The new policy expands on a 2006 program that requires property owners who want to reduce wildfire risk by planting “trees” on their properties to get a “fire-resistant rating” from the service, which “encourages land owners to cut back on flammable shrubs, especially those that grow near natural forests and woodlands,” the Washington Post reports. The new rule “will require property owners to plant a forest of at least 10 acres with at least 2 percent of the tree species listed in the Service’s inventory as fire-resistant,” the Post recounts, suggesting that it will be less favorable to property owners who have property close to a
