Camp Fire Paradise, Carr Fire Redding, SERVPRO and Wildfire Insurance Value

12/31/2018 (Permalink)

Fire Damage? Call SERVPRO of North Shasta, Trinity & Greater Tehama Counties at 530-222-0200.

California wildfires, like Redding’s #CarrFire and Butte County’s #CampFire consuming to apocalyptic devastation massive sections of overgrown forest throughout our SERVPRO of North Shasta, Trinity & Greater Tehama Counties region, extended, by surprise in early November, to destroy the entire town of Paradise in Butte County.  Our sister SERVPRO franchise in Chico suffered loss.  The fortitude and support of national SERVPRO STORM teams rushing to aid continues deploying an ever-increasing multitude of fire damage restoration professionals, air cleaning equipment and resources from the San Francisco Bay area, Southern California, Oregon, Nevada and beyond, to soot, ash and smoke odor infused structures in the immediate Northern California footprint of wildfire damaged communities.

SERVPRO – Trusted by Homeowners and Businesses  - Fire & Water Damage Restoration.  Call Now!  530-222-0200

Residents and business owners increasingly enjoy all that California has to offer and choose to build homes, commercial buildings, and multi-unit housing properties in what are known as “wildland urban interface areas”.  These areas such as the Paradise community, Magalia and in Redding the French Gulch, Shasta, Keswick, Swazey Drive, Centerville, Marylake Subdivison, Lake Redding Estates, River Ridge Park areas and many others are surrounded by compressed and largely uncleared, indefensible, Manzanita trees fueled by natural oils that burn with ferociously hot temperatures.  High winds and long hot dry Summers create these all-to-often perfect fire-storm conditions igniting California oakwoods, Juniper steppe woodlands, mixed conifer and fir forests, Ponderosa shrubs and Cedar, hemlock, and Douglas fir wildland areas; all surrounding the ever-expanding neighborhoods, homes, businesses and schools.

Let’s talk about Homeowners Insurance:  It should be very simple.  Policy premium is calculated from the cost to replace the premises value.  The problem arises when multiple massive California wildfires occur in a short time.  Essentially insurance companies run out of money to continue to write home and property coverage.  Market value of a home and it’s replacement cost are two different things.  A totally burned structure includes the additional insurance claims components of toxic residue disposal, soil testing and debris clean up along with a whole host of additional unknown factors such as contractor licensing, Shasta, Trinity, Tehama and Butte Counties permitting, lead and asbestos testing along with local, state and federal regulations.

The point is that California insured who own homes must be insured to value.  Many, it turns out; are not. This could be from not keeping up to date on increased valuations from remodeling and home improvement or insufficient value calculations at the inception of the policy.  The key target insurance providers are looking for is that property owners meet the 80% of replacement value threshold.  This industry threshold is known as “coinsurance.”  When total-loss occurs the policy limit is paid out and when partial loss occurs the full amount of repairs is paid out.  SERVPRO of North Shasta, Trinity & Greater Tehama Counties has been working with insurance agents and insurance claims adjusters for years.  We work with all the well-respected names like State Farm, Farmers, AllState, and many others. We have long standing friendships and relationships with our local Redding, Mt. Shasta, Red Bluff, Weed, Yreka and Weaverville insurance property and casualty specialists.   

Defensible Space Zones

There are two zones to consider when clearing and maintaining open space.

Zone 1 – Extends out 30 feet from the structure and decks.

Zone 2 – Extends an additional 100 feet out.

A recent example tells the story.  Our SERVPRO soot and smoke odor inspection teams are regularly called out to homes that survived the Carr Fire.  Many residents tell their story of coming back and finding that the early efforts they made to clear brush, remove trees, take down dead branches and large dry collections of leaves as well as install gravel and water saving landscaping open spaces all paid off when the flames burned just up to the edge of their property and stopped. 

Within both of these zones removal is required for excess vegetation, dead plants, woodpiles, leaves and pine needles and certainly tightly overgrown Manzanita and wildland grass that fuels the ignition point of a not-if-but-when wildfire disaster.

Call SERVPRO in Redding, California.  Our response times are very fast! 

We are available round-the-clock at 530-222-0200

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