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Committee advances voluntary home‑hardening certification to encourage wildfire resilience
Summary
AB 1143 would direct the State Fire Marshal to convene a working group and develop a voluntary home‑hardening certification program identifying measures (including defensible space). The committee advanced the bill; members emphasized voluntary incentives and the need for complementary incentives to drive adoption.
Assemblymember Bennett’s AB 1143 — a voluntary home‑hardening certification program — was advanced by the committee and referred to the Committee on Natural Resources.
Bennett said a trusted statewide certification would encourage holistic home hardening (roofing, vents, defensible space and other measures) and create a uniform standard that could support insurance discounts, higher resale values and community-level Firewise-style efforts. He argued that partial hardening is far less effective than a comprehensive approach and that a voluntary certification could create incentives and public‑private programs to increase the number of hardened homes.
Support came from the California Fire Chiefs Association, California Professional Firefighters and League of California Cities. The author emphasized the voluntary nature of the program and said incentives will be needed to drive participation. No organized opposition appeared at the hearing.
Vote and next steps: The committee’s roll call indicates the bill passed and will move to the Natural Resources Committee for further consideration. Members urged complementary incentives — such as financial or insurance-related mechanisms — to encourage adoption and noted the scale of the problem: an estimated millions of homes statewide could benefit from hardening over time.
Clarifying details: AB 1143 establishes a working group led by the State Fire Marshal to recommend the criteria for a voluntary statewide certification; the bill does not itself appropriate funds or mandate work on private property.
