SONORA, Calif. — The fates of a handful of bills aimed at making homes in fire-prone areas safer hang in the mix as California’s legislative session wraps up. If passed, these proposed pieces of legislation could help ease some of the burden for the tens of thousands of homeowners statewide who are finding they can't afford the insurance needed to protect their homes from wildfires.
It’s a crisis stemming from consecutive years of deadly and destructive wildfires in the state, as insurance companies are dropping customers they’ve covered for decades — and sharply raising premiums for others.
Many people are left cobbling together insurance from a couple of different carriers, often paying two- to five-times more than they used to, for less comprehensive coverage.
"We've been dealing with this problem for long enough to where people are at risk of losing their homes,” Tuolumne County Supervisor Ryan Campbell told ABC10 News Thursday night.
Campbell attended a meeting in Sonora’s Opera Hall held by California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who last week launched a town hall tour of fire-prone counties statewide, where homeowners are facing this crisis.
ABC10 has covered each of the three meetings so far, with hundreds of homeowners in Grass Valley, Auburn and Sonora packing their respective venues.
In his presentation, Lara tells concerned homeowners about bills going through the State Legislature right now.
Assembly Bill 38 and Senate Bill 295 would help homeowners with the cost of hardening their homes, since tree removal and other kinds of fire-safe landscaping can be expensive. AB38 would do this by establishing a state-level fund, and SB295 would create new tax credits.
AB1516, introduced by Assemblymember Laura Friedman, would establish better guidelines for creating defensible space around a home and offer grants to local governments to help make that happen in their communities.
“We are really hoping this bill can make it out of appropriations tomorrow,” Friedman’s communications director Blake Dellinger told ABC10. “While the fire season has been less severe this year than the last two years, we cannot forget the unprecedented devastation we have seen. AB1516 puts forward new ideas and tactics that will reduce the number of homes and lives lost in wildfires.”
It would create a third zone of defensible space meant to reduce the chance that floating embers from a wildfire would ignite more spot-fires. It would also create a risk model to help property owners better understand their wildfire risk and how to guard against it.
“Right now we are in the ‘live or die' phase of the bill,” Dellinger said, adding AB 1516 has no formal opposition but does come with a cost. “While there is unanimous support for this bill amongst the entire fire prevention expert community, if it were to be held, it would be for fiscal reasons.”
If it passes, AB1516 would go into effect Jan. 1, 2020, and there's no time to lose.
"We are in the hottest part of the year and the most critical part for fire, and it can happen at any moment for us, and so it’s not fair for people not to have their fire insurance," Tuolumne County neighbor Mary Anne Schmidt told ABC10 before Thursday's meeting.
She held signs in front of the Sonora Opera Hall that said, "The crisis is now" and "Canceled: Do you know how that feels."
“The state has got to do something now, not next year," she said.
In a paper bag painted with the words, "Hear our voice," Schmidt carried hand-written letters from her friends and neighbors that she planned on hand-delivering to Commissioner Lara.
"It is a crisis,” Campbell said. “We've been dealing with difficulties keeping and maintaining insurance in Tuolumne County since 2015, 2016, and it's affected virtually everyone in every part of the county."
Much of his county is rural and low-income.
RELATED: 'It needs immediate action' | Homeowners desperate for affordable insurance in fire-prone areas
"I can’t tell you how many times I've talked to widows, retirees, who've been paying their premiums on time for 30 years, and they get a letter in the mail saying that they're going to be denied insurance coverage in two months,” he said.
One bill that “should be a slam dunk” is SB240, said Paul Payne, the press secretary for Sen. Bill Dodd, who introduced the bill. It would mandate training for independent adjusters following a disaster and was written in response to unscrupulous, out-of-state insurance adjusters flocking to California after the 2015 fires and causing undue extra pain for victims.
One of Dodd’s other bills, SB190, has a less certain future, Payne said. This bill would require the State Fire Marshal to develop defensible space and fire safety building standards for local governments.
Finally, SB182 — not dissimilar in its goal — would create community-level standards for wildfire mitigation and require counties and cities to follow those.
These bills go before lawmakers on Friday. Since Sept. 13 is the last day a bill can be passed, each hurdle now is live-or-die. Bills that don’t get passed in committee won’t see the light of day — at least, not this session.
Continue the conversation with Becca on Facebook.