KB Home Introduces Southern California to Its First “Fire-Resilient” Development

“Nothing is ever fireproof. We’re always just seeking to try to narrow those paths of destruction.”

— Roy Wright, CEO, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety

KB Home, a large real estate developer, has just introduced the first U.S. “wildfire-resilient community.” It’s built to meet a set of standards developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety. The builder has used special methods and materials in its Dixon Trail development, located in Escondido, near San Diego.

But what does it mean to be resilient? Is KB Home’s approach setting a new bar for climate-focused real estate? Let’s look at what we know so far.

What Features Make the Dixon Trail Homes “Resilient”?

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety has worked on a set of standards — for individual homes, and for the way multiple homes are arranged when built together. KB Home says its new development adheres to “IBHS’s highest level of protection” from flames, embers, and heat. The purpose is to slow the spread of fires if and when they break out.

The homes are built with:

• Enclosed eaves and gutters, to prevent the buildup of dried leaves.

• Exterior walls protected by noncombustible surfaces, such as stucco.

• Windows made of tempered glass.

• Fire-retardant (Class A fire-rated) roofs, decks and patios, doors, shutters and window frames.

• Five-foot brush-free buffers surrounding the homes.

• Flame-resistant vents that repel embers.

The developer is currently managing the construction of 64 Escondido homes according to the strictest level of standards. So, the Dixon Trail homes are being marketed under the insurance group’s Wildfire Prepared Home Plus label.

Then there’s the way multiple new structures are spaced, when sited in one development.  There’s a label for that, too. The insurance group has trademarked a new Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood standard.

Expensive, and In Demand

For the Dixon Trail layout, the KB Home company is getting a “provisional neighborhood-level designation.” This indicates that the developers are using fire-prevention methods for the whole group of homes. They’re hoping to keep enough distance from home to home, and to allow fewer pathways for fires to move and spread.

Helping homes stand up to fires involves emerging techniques in landscaping, elevation, and design. These planning measures make initial fires less likely to form, and slower to spread, whenever a wildfire has started in the area.

Landscaping precautions involve maintaining a ring around each individual home, clear of combustible plant matter. To guard against wind-blown embers, fencing is made of metal, not wood.

Jeffrey Mezger, the CEO of KB Home, says the Escondido development is the first in the United States to meet the insurance group’s wildfire resilience standards — both for the homes themselves, and the development as a whole. As we might imagine, fire-resistant features don’t come cheap. The new houses “range from $1 million to the low millions.” But KB Home is finding buyers. People have already started moving in.

Will This Become an Industry Norm?

California law now directs sellers to make fire-related disclosures. It also requires owners to apply “home hardening” techniques to protect the value of at-risk real estate. At the same time, insurance companies are balking at covering fire-prone areas. Wildfire damage has even led some companies to stop issuing homeowner’s insurance to California deed holders. Even when insurance is offered in wildfire country, it’s extremely expensive.

With all that’s going on, it’s no surprise that builders, insurers, and other players in California’s real estate sphere would focus on wildfire damage mitigation. Certainly, that focus is generating new industry norms. KB Home’s fire-aware housing development is the latest example.

Meanwhile, the California Association of REALTORS® has been ringing alarm bells about the rising number of deed transactions falling through as buyers struggle to get affordable insurance.

The California Department of Insurance continues to press insurers to offer products  for deed holders who are vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

Not that the real estate industry can be expected to fix this issue. It can only “mitigate” — offset risk to some degree. And it seems that goal, so far, is workable. In the recent Palisades disaster, some homes custom-built to meet fire-resistance standards did survive the fires while nearby homes didn’t.

The KB Home subdivision will be put to the test, if and when the new homes are actually in the line of fire. Roy Wright, CEO, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, explains that the KB Home development is “really the test bed to show this and demonstrate” its effectiveness.

Wright says KB Home has similar developments in the works, and expects other firms to follow the trend. Most of the test grounds are in California, which, according to CoreLogic®, had more than 2 million properties at high to extreme wildfire risk as of 2024.

States with at least a six-figure count of homes at extreme risk are (in order of the number of homes at risk): Colorado, Texas, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, and Idaho. A handful of southeastern states — North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi — are just as notable for the sheer number of acres burned. Some areas in each state are more fire-prone than others. Due diligence matters.

So, Let Us Be Clear Here…

It does appear that “fire resilient” homes are going to appear in listings more and more. Not just in California, but in the various regions where wildfire outbreaks are rising in frequency. The insurers’ group is bringing fire-resistant building models into construction industry expos. This is as much about making these regions safe for the insurance industry as it is about protecting people’s lives and homes.

And it bears repeating: a home marketed as fire-resilient isn’t free of risk. In some ways, this concept could generate additional risk. Spacing out suburban homes would seem to promote sprawl — which is one of the noted causes of wildfire risk. (Granted, KB Home says the structures are being placed at least 10 feet apart — not exactly a huge buffer.) More pointedly, as the Insurance Information Institute reports, fire-suppression policies meant to rapidly put out wildfires to preserve real estate actually lead to the accumulation of brush that fuels more fires.

There’s one point we can make with certainty. Insurance expert Roy Wright is correct. No home is truly fireproof. Ultimately, the value of our deeds is only as resilient as our respect for the natural systems on which our lives depend.