Sunset Mesa, the scenic neighborhood tucked on a bluff between Malibu and Pacific Palisades, might never be the same in the wake of the Palisades fire.
But resident Karen Martinez sees one potential change as a good thing.
The January fire torched about 80% of the community’s 500 homes — almost all of them wood-framed. Now, as residents begin the long process of rebuilding, Martinez is pushing her neighbors to chuck the lumber and build with noncombustible materials instead.
The goal? The housing equivalent of herd immunity, where enough homes are fireproof that the entire community can be protected against future fires. Your home is far safer if your next-door neighbors’ houses aren’t burning down and sending fiery debris and showers of embers into the air.
The benefits of herd immunity stretch beyond fire defense; some insurance companies have signaled that they’re open to insuring more homes — at cheaper rates — in neighborhoods that feature higher percentages of fireproof homes.
Rogelio Ramos installs a segment of fire resistant Perfect Block at the start of construction of Karen Martinez’s home in the Sunset Mesa community in Malibu.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
For the last year, Martinez, 62, has become an evangelist for insulated composite concrete forms (ICCF), a building material made from concrete and expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam). She’s been holding Zoom meetings for neighbors, proselytizing just this month when she hosted a community potluck where 70 people watched her lay the first few Perfect Blocks of her fireproof home.
“I want people to know they have options,” Martinez said. “We don’t have to rebuild with something that’s going to burn again.”
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A Palisades resident for decades, Martinez moved to Sunset Mesa in 2022 following the death of her husband. She’d been aware of ICCF for years, so when her three-bedroom house on Surfwood Road burned down in January, she already knew she wanted to rebuild with it.
In Southern California’s fire-stricken landscape, a handful of fireproofing trends have emerged — from high-tech solutions such as fire-retardant sprinkler systems, to new building materials such as hempcrete or mass timber, large paneled beams of wood that burn slowly at a rate of a half-inch every hour, giving firefighters more time to stop the fire.
Martinez chose ICCF for two reasons. For one, it’s fireproof — noncombustible with a four-hour fire rating. It’s also relatively cheap — Martinez paid $27 per block, and her 1,956-square-foot rebuild will require around 600 blocks, which stack like Legos, forming a grid with hollow cores that are then filled with concrete and rebar.
In total, the shell of her fireproof home cost around $16,000, and the rebuild will cost less than $400 per square foot.
“I’ve gotten multiple quotes, and this material is the least expensive by far,” Martinez said, taking in the ocean view while watching her team pour concrete the day before her potluck. “Going forward, I’d like to see every single house in this neighborhood built with noncombustible material.”
In addition to the blocks, the home will feature a lightweight steel roof and dual-pane windows with aluminum frames.
Her months-long crusade has brought in several believers, including two neighbors who own the lots next to hers. They’re both planning to rebuild with the composite concrete blocks.
In total, she said around 15 people in Sunset Mesa alone are planning to rebuild with ICCF, as well as 15 more in Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Martinez claims many more Sunset Mesa residents want to, but they’ve been talked out of it by their architects and contractors, who aren’t familiar with the material and claim it’ll slow down their rebuilds.
In fairness, for Martinez, it did. The material is approved in the city of Los Angeles since it has a Los Angeles Research Report, a review required by the L.A. Department of Building and Safety to make sure a material is safe to use. But since Martinez’s home sits in the unincorporated community of Sunset Mesa, permits are handled by L.A. County, which requires a separate report ensuring that ICCF meets code requirements.
Eco Building Systems, the company that manufactures the concrete blocks Martinez is using, didn’t have one. So she took it upon herself to get them one — even fronting the $12,000 application fee (which was eventually returned to her through a discount on the blocks).
Members of the Sunset Mesa community gather at Karen Martinez’s homesite.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The process took months. But now that the report is done, others in Sunset Mesa will have a much quicker time securing building permits.
“I was the guinea pig,” she said. “Now, everyone can use it.”
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Research shows that in the context of a fire, homes often burn or survive as a group.
California’s wind-driven fires spread via embers. If one house sets ablaze, the house next door is much more likely to burn. But if a house is fireproof, it can act as a shield for the vulnerable wood homes behind it.
It’s the reason that newly built neighborhoods such as Orchard Hills in Irvine require higher fireproofing standards for homes on the outer rim of the community.
The concept of communitywide home-hardening has been dubbed “herd immunity,” a disease-related phrase that suggests that if a large enough portion of a population is immune to a virus, it becomes difficult for an infection to spread.
It’s a phenomenon that Victor Joseph, chief operating officer of Mercury Insurance, thinks about regularly. Joseph attended Martinez’s potluck and said he’s been surprised by the number of people in Sunset Mesa and the Palisades who are serious about rebuilding with noncombustible materials.
“They’ve been proactively engaging us to figure out how to rebuild in a way that will be accepted by insurance companies,” he said, adding that he’s hosted two Zoom meetings for locals, each drawing about 100 people.
Over the summer, Mercury launched a discount for homes that meet its fireproof standards: 50% off for the fire portion of a home insurance plan for houses built to be noncombustible. The company also offers a 15% community discount for neighborhoods that meet its requirements.
Joseph explained that insurance companies generally avoid insuring too many homes in a given area because if they all get destroyed, the claims will be too expensive to pay out. It’s the age-old rule of not putting all your eggs in one basket.
But if you build enough fireproof homes to achieve herd immunity, Mercury can justify insuring more homes — and at cheaper rates.
“If 30 fireproof homes are spread across the Palisades, we’d be happy to insure, but the benefits won’t be as significant,” he said. “But if you have 30 fireproof homes clustered on two blocks? That’s fascinating.”
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Sunset Mesa resident Anita Clark, 91, who lost her home in the Palisades fire, listens as Karen Martinez makes a presentation urging members of the Sunset Mesa community to rebuild homes with noncombustible materials.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Sunset Mesa is at a precipice. As of early November, nine building permits have been issued in the community, according to the L.A. County Planning Department, with hundreds of homes still in the planning phase.
To Martinez, that means a chance for hundreds of homeowners to build in a way that protects not only their homes, but their neighborhoods. To Robert Dugan, CEO of the California Construction and Industrial Materials Assn., it’s a chance to push a neighborhood into becoming a model for the rest of California.
“Every house matters. If we can get one of every five homes, or one of every two homes, to build noncombustible, the risk paradigm changes dramatically,” he said. “Every house built with fire resilience in mind might be the place where the fire stops.”
For many fire victims, many of whom are still living in hotels or renting homes, building with wood makes sense. It’s the quickest, often cheapest way to get back home. So Dugan said it’s important for the fireproofing industry to make the choice easier for homeowners, which includes lining up architects and contractors who are ready to build noncombustible homes.
As a volunteer with the Red Cross, he helped build three homes in Paradise with ICCF and said they can look like any other home. Martinez’s property will be stucco on the exterior, drywall on the inside. You won’t be able to tell it’s made of ICCF.
In the meantime, Martinez is still settling into her role as homebuilder/advocate/microinfluencer. In addition to constant dialogue with her neighbors, she recently launched an Instagram account with the handle @palisadesfirerebuild to document her journey.
A few months ago, Martinez was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer — a byproduct of a five-year fight with uveal melanoma. Her tumors are gone, but the fear of getting sick again is adding to the urgency of her mission.
She got her building permit in late October, poured concrete Nov. 7, and laid the first of the ICCF blocks the following day. She plans to finish the home in a year, shooting for next summer.
“After the diagnosis, part of me asked if I should take it easy,” she said. “But I want to show that this is possible. I’m plowing forward to finish this and make a difference.”
