Rebuilding After a Wildfire: What to Build, What Your Insurance Covers, and the Five-Foot Rule That Matters Most

TL;DR: Fire is covered; underinsurance is the problem. Before you talk to a builder, know your dwelling limit, your extended replacement cost, your code-upgrade coverage, and how long your living-expense benefit lasts. Then build the boring house: Class A roof, enclosed eaves, ember-resistant vents, non-combustible siding and deck, tempered glass, and five feet of nothing that burns around it. Those details, not the wall material, are what decide whether the next fire goes around you.

The direct answer

The money. Nearly every homeowner's policy covers fire. After a large wildfire the claim is rarely denied; it is underpaid relative to what rebuilding now costs, because labor and materials spike when thousands of homes rebuild at once. The three policy features that decide whether you can rebuild are the dwelling limit, extended (or guaranteed) replacement cost, and building-code-upgrade (ordinance-or-law) coverage. Additional living expense is the fourth, because rebuilding takes years, not months.

The building. Most homes lost in wildfires are ignited by embers, not by the flame front; IBHS's full-scale testing and the post-fire investigations agree on this, and some sources put ember-driven ignitions as high as nine in ten. [tested] That changes everything about what to rebuild. The wall system matters less than the roof, the vents, the windows, the deck, and the first five feet of ground around the house. Build the whole system, not one heroic material.

The builder. Post-fire markets have the same predators as post-hurricane ones, with one extra wrinkle: debris and soil clearance has to happen first, through official channels, or you lose eligibility for the programs that pay for it.

This page is national. California's rules are the most developed in the country and serve as the reference point, with notes on how other WUI states differ.

Key facts

First, the sequence

1. Do not enter or clear the lot until it is released. Ash from a burned home contains asbestos, heavy metals, and household chemicals. After large fires a government program removes household hazardous waste in a first pass, then structural debris in a second, often with soil testing. [code] Clearing on your own can be unsafe and can make you ineligible for the free program.
2. File the claim and ask for the full policy. Not the declarations page: the whole policy, with endorsements. California requires insurers to provide a complete copy within 30 days of a request after a declared disaster; other states vary.
3. Get the contents inventory started. After a declared disaster, California requires insurers to offer a percentage of contents coverage without an itemized list; some other states have similar rules. Take it; then build the list for the rest.
4. Confirm your ALE limit and duration. Then find housing on that budget. Rebuilds after the 2018 Camp Fire and the 2025 Los Angeles fires have run well past two years for most owners.
5. Learn your fire hazard severity zone and the local code overlay before you call an architect. Reusing the old plans is possible; reusing the old construction is not.

What the insurance payout can fund, line by line

Dwelling coverage (Coverage A). The number on your declarations page. After a major fire it is almost never enough. United Policyholders' surveys after large California fires have found roughly two-thirds or more of total-loss homeowners underinsured, with estimates after the 2025 Los Angeles fires running higher.

Extended replacement cost. An endorsement that pays a stated percentage above Coverage A, commonly 25 to 50 percent, if rebuilding costs more. Guaranteed replacement cost pays whatever it costs; it has become rare. Check which one you have before you accept any settlement.

Building code upgrade / ordinance-or-law. Pays the added cost of meeting current code. In a WUI rebuild this funds the Class A roofing, ember-resistant vents, tempered glass, and non-combustible siding your original house didn't have. Commonly 10 percent of Coverage A, often increasable.

Additional living expense. Pays rent and related costs while you are displaced, to a dollar amount or a time period. California requires at least 24 months of ALE after a total loss in a declared state of emergency, with extensions of up to 12 additional months for good cause; most states have no such floor. If your limit is 12 months and the rebuild is 30, that gap is yours to fund.

Contents. Separate limit. A total loss usually exhausts it.

Land, trees, and other structures. Debris removal is often a sub-limit; landscaping and detached structures have their own, usually small, limits.

What insurance will not do: it will not raise your dwelling limit after the fact, and it will not pay you to build a bigger or fancier house than you lost. A smaller, better-detailed house within your limit is a legitimate strategy, and one we often recommend.

Debris, soil, and the lot you get back

Large fire recoveries run a two-phase clearance. Phase 1 is hazardous materials removal by a state or federal environmental agency; no homeowner opt-in is required. Phase 2 is structural debris removal, either through a government program (you sign a right-of-entry and the program bills your insurance's debris sub-limit, if any, not you) or privately through a licensed contractor to the same standard, with soil sampling and a sign-off before a building permit is issued.

What you get back is a scraped lot, often with the foundation removed, because a fire-damaged slab is rarely sound and most programs remove it. Budget for a new foundation even if the old one "looks fine." [judgment] In steep terrain, have the slope assessed for erosion and stability, because a burned hillside behaves differently in the next rainy season.

What the code requires, and what it doesn't

California Building Code Chapter 7A is the most developed residential WUI standard in the country and the one other states borrow from; the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code (IWUIC) is the model code some jurisdictions adopt instead. [code] Both apply in mapped fire hazard severity zones and require, in substance:

• A Class A roof assembly with the roof-to-wall intersection closed (no bird-stops left open, no gaps at the ridge).
• Ember-resistant vents (listed products with fine mesh or baffles) or no vents at all, in attics, eaves, foundations, and crawlspaces.
• Enclosed eaves and soffits of ignition-resistant materials.
• Exterior walls of non-combustible or ignition-resistant materials, or an assembly tested to resist flame exposure.
• Windows with at least one pane of tempered glass; multi-pane with tempered is standard.
• Decks of ignition-resistant or non-combustible materials, or tested assemblies.
• Gutters with covers or non-combustible gutters.

Then there is defensible space, which is separate from the building code: in California, 100 feet of managed vegetation, with Zone 1 (5–30 ft) and Zone 2 (30–100 ft) rules, and Zone 0, the ember-resistant zone within five feet of the structure where nothing combustible is allowed. California's Zone 0 regulation has moved from statute (AB 3074) through the Board of Forestry's rulemaking; confirm the final filing, effective dates, and any phased compliance schedule for new versus existing homes against the Board's current regulation before relying on it.

Other WUI states (Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas Hill Country, parts of the Southeast) range from fully adopted WUI codes in some counties to nothing at all in others. If your county has no WUI code, build to Chapter 7A anyway. Headwaters Economics and IBHS found a wildfire-resistant home costs about the same as a conventional one to build.

What to rebuild to: the code-plus house

Code gets you a house that resists ignition. Code-plus gets you a house that survives when the neighbors' don't. The research is unusually clear here because IBHS and NIST have studied what burned and what didn't after Camp, Marshall, Lahaina, and the January 2025 Los Angeles fires.

The non-negotiables (embers)

1. Zone 0: five feet of nothing that burns. Gravel or pavers against the wall, no mulch, no wood fence connecting to the house, no stacked firewood, no shrubs under windows. [tested] The single highest-return change you can make.
2. Class A roof with every gap closed. Metal or tile with closed ends; concrete or metal over a sealed deck is the best of both. [tested]
3. Ember-resistant vents, or none. A vent is a hole that embers go through. [tested]
4. Enclosed, non-combustible eaves and soffits. Open eaves trap heat and embers against the sheathing.
5. Non-combustible gutters with covers, or no gutters where the climate allows.
6. Tempered glass in every window and door, dual pane. Radiant heat breaks annealed glass; the house then burns from inside.
7. Non-combustible deck (steel frame, concrete, or a tested non-combustible composite assembly), and nothing combustible stored beneath it.
8. Non-combustible siding: fiber cement, stucco over continuous insulation detailed for fire, metal, or masonry. The siding matters less than the seven above, but it matters.

The shell

Here is the honest ranking. Concrete and masonry systems (ICF, CMU, SCIP, cast-in-place) give you a non-combustible wall and better performance under prolonged radiant exposure. ICF and SCIP carry foam that must be protected by a rated finish and detailed to keep embers out at every edge [manufacturer]; an exposed foam edge is a fuse. Fiber-cement over FORTIFIED frame with the eight details above is what most burned-out neighborhoods will realistically rebuild with. Post-fire studies, including NIST's Camp Fire work and IBHS's field and laboratory research, consistently show that ember entry through vents, open eaves, and the immediate perimeter correlated more strongly with total loss than wall-framing type alone. [tested] That is why a wood-frame house built to Chapter 7A with a hardened perimeter is more likely to survive than a concrete house with open eaves and a wood deck. Light-gauge steel framing is non-combustible and worth asking about if a crew is available. [judgment]

If your site also carries seismic or snow loads (much of the WUI does), those decide the shell as much as fire. Our plan weighs them together.

Water and power

A standby generator and a well or tank with a pump on that generator let you keep the roof and perimeter wet during an approach, which is how some surviving homes survived. [judgment] Exterior sprinklers are a supplement, not a substitute for the eight details.

The designation

IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home is a third-party-verified designation (Base and Plus) that packages most of the above into an inspection and a certificate. Some insurers recognize it; in California the Safer from Wildfires framework requires insurers to offer credit for specified mitigation steps. The certificate is also the best documentation you can hand a lender and an appraiser.

Where the extra money comes from

How to hire a builder in a post-fire market

The rules are the same as after a hurricane, with fire-specific additions.

• Verify the license yourself on the state board. In California, check the Contractors State License Board directly.
• Confirm the contractor has built to Chapter 7A (or your state's WUI code) before. Ask for an inspection record from a prior WUI permit. Vent, eave, and deck details are where inexperienced crews fail inspection, and where re-inspection delays stack up.
• Contract on milestones, not dates. Several states cap deposits.
• Understand the "mass rebuild" offers. After big fires, production builders offer standardized plans at fixed prices to whole neighborhoods. They can be good value and fast. Read the specification for the eight details above; cheap plans often skip the vents and the tempered glass.
• Watch for pressure to settle quickly. Insurers and contractors both benefit from a fast number. You benefit from the right one.

What we can help with

BuiltStrong's free plan takes your address, pulls your fire hazard zone, slope, and the seismic and snow loads most WUI sites also carry, and shows you which systems and details matter for your lot with cost bands at your region's rates. Our advisory work covers plan review against Chapter 7A and the IBHS checklist, builder vetting, and the documentation package for your insurer, lender, and appraiser; site visits can be arranged. If you want a vetted builder, we'll introduce you and tell you plainly that the builder pays us a referral fee when you sign.

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