Press and Media

More than 668,000 California homeowners are now on the FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort. That number grows by roughly 17,000 every month. Major carriers have pulled out of wildfire zones across California, and the homes hit hardest are in the wildland-urban interface, where developed neighborhoods meet undeveloped wildland.

The Bay Area sits at the center of this crisis. Communities like Saratoga, Los Gatos, Woodside, Portola Valley, and the Santa Cruz Mountains are classified as Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones by CAL FIRE. Homeowners in these areas are losing private insurance coverage, getting non-renewed, or being forced onto the FAIR Plan with a dwelling coverage cap of $3 million.

For luxury homes in the Bay Area, rebuild costs run $400 to $850 per square foot. A 6,000 square foot estate costs $5 million or more to rebuild. A 10,000 square foot property can exceed $8 million. The FAIR Plan covers a fraction of that. The gap between what insurance pays and what it costs to rebuild is where families lose everything they have built.

The FAIR Plan was designed as a temporary safety net. It does not cover liability, personal property, or additional living expenses. It is fire-only coverage with a hard cap. For Bay Area homeowners with properties valued at $5 million to $15 million or more, the FAIR Plan does not come close to making them whole after a total loss.

This is not a hypothetical. The January 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires caused an estimated $30 to $50 billion in insured losses. 85% of structures were lost in the first 60 to 90 minutes, before fire crews could reach most homes. Municipal water infrastructure collapsed under demand. Homes that could have been saved had no water pressure to fight with.

The insurance industry is not coming back to these zip codes without evidence that homeowners are actively reducing risk. Defensible space and home hardening are necessary. They are not sufficient. What is missing is an active automated defense layer that fights fire at the property level when no one is home and no fire crew is available.

FireRoofs designs and installs automated exterior wildfire defense systems for luxury homes in Bay Area WUI communities. The system uses dual wildfire detection, two independent layers that work together to identify threats and trigger an automated response.

Layer 1 is regional satellite wildfire monitoring. The system monitors GOES-18 satellite data, NOAA fire weather feeds, and CAL FIRE incident data. When fire activity is detected within a 5-mile radius, the system pre-arms and begins a preventive soaking cycle on the roof, eaves, and perimeter.

Layer 2 is on-property cameras with intelligent fire detection. Cameras mounted at strategic positions around the home watch the surrounding landscape day and night. When threats are detected at the property, the system escalates its response automatically.

The system operates through three threat levels. Level 1 pre-wets the property when fire is detected in the region. Level 2 increases saturation frequency when the threat moves closer or conditions escalate, and automatically switches to a backup water source (pool or storage tank) if municipal pressure drops. Level 3 activates maximum defense with continuous saturation across all zones and, if equipped, deploys Class A firefighting foam.

No buttons. No valves. No phone calls. The system runs whether the homeowner is home or has evacuated. It switches water sources on its own. It escalates on its own. It was designed for the exact scenario that played out in the Palisades Fire: the 60 to 90 minute window when the home is on its own.