High-tech exterior sprinklers can save homes from wildfires
High-tech exterior sprinklers can save homes from wildfires
Based on results from the L.A. wildfires, a Wyoming company is getting tons of calls from Californians trying to find a high-tech way to keep their houses from burning.
BERKELEY, Calif. - Based on results from the L.A. wildfires, a Wyoming company is getting tons of calls from Californian's trying to find a high-tech way to keep their houses from burning: it's the ultimate kind of fire insurance.
Uninsured Californians
Like hundreds of thousands of California-insured homeowners, famed landscape architect Doug Findlay and his wife, who were State Farm customers for more than three decades, found themselves without homeowners' insurance for their Berkeley Hills home. Though the Findlay's were able to find a far more expensive insurer, they decided that they needed something more to have a better chance at not losing their home of almost four decades.
"I'm insuring the insurance company," said Mr. Findlay.
High-tech home sprinkler system
The Findlay’s chose an exterior home sprinkler system from a company called Frontline Wildfire Defense.
"And this one is a proactive system that helps, basically, to turn the area around your house into a bit of a rain forest," said the homeowner. " A self-defense mechanism for your home so you can safely get out of harm's way and not make a trade-off on your home defending itself," said Frontline Wildfire Defense CEO Harry Statter.
It tracks fires long before even windblown embers, a leading cause of, can get to your house.
"Satellite data, its camera data, its weather data, census data and we use that information to inform our sprinkler network when to turn on and provide protection for a wildfire," said Statter.
Within seconds of turning it on, sprinklers bathe the outside surface of a home with water and Class-A, non-toxic firefighting foam. "Proactively wet the materials down before embers land on them and there in a state where it's too wet to burn," said the CEO.
So, how long does wet stay wet? The combination of water and foam stay wet for up to four days; long, long after the fires have passed.
Does it work?
By the numbers:
Data from the recent L.A. fires shows impressive results. "Of the 61 systems we had in the L.A. area, in and around the fire area, 59 of those homes were saved," said Statter. "Those are pretty good odds," said homeowner Findlay.
The system can be turned on by flipping a switch at the home, over a phone app or an automatic activation if fire conditions are threatening.
"Our days are a little calmer for now because we're not waiting for some emergency text. That would tell us, 'Get out. You gotta get out right now,'" said Findlay.
The cost
Fifteen-year financing is available with many home systems starting at $500 a month.
Featured
Southern California wildfires highlight home insurance industry
Insurers, who have reportedly agreed to phase in selling new policies even in fire risk areas, are confronted with massive new claims from clients who lost homes to the L.A. firestorms. But, different insurers pay claims in different and sometimes lesser ways.