The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety says a report commissioned on the L.A. fires highlights the need for people to take hardening their homes against fire seriously.
"They need to do this at scale on their own individual homes to give them the highest chance of surviving the next high-intensity wildfires," said the institute's senior director of wildfire, Steve Hawks.
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Hawks told KNX News Special Correspondent Steve Gregory that research done in the past has helped strengthen building codes and adopt laws aimed at making homes safer, but that's for future builds.
He says existing homes are still at great risk.
"It's the mitigation actions that's the missing component, particularly for those communities and those homes that were built prior to the codes coming into place," he said.
According to Hawks, many of the homes in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones were built in the 1950s and 60s, and unfortunately, no laws exist forcing people to retrofit their homes.
Hawks says things like clearing space around your property and using fire-resistant materials improve your home's chances of surviving a wildfire.
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