Zone Zero

Nov 3, 2026 · Summarized Nov 3, 2026

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Key takeaways

Berkeley’s celebrated hillside design grew from the Hillside Club’s arts-and-crafts ideal of houses integrated into dense gardens, but that same design left homes vulnerable to embers and fast-moving fires.
Wildfire defensible space focuses on preventing ember ignition by removing combustible material near structures, especially within the five-foot Zone Zero.
Michel Thuati changed from denial to action after studying hundreds of wildfire papers, removing or relocating much of the garden he had spent decades growing.
The Ember Ordinance initially targets about 950 homes near Tilden Park and adds requirements such as gutter protection and metal vent screens to create a buffer for roughly 10,000 homes downhill.
Opposition was driven not only by concerns about cost, erosion, habitat, and government authority, but also by grief over losing the historic Berkeley Hills landscape residents valued.
The policy’s success depends on widespread neighborhood participation, financial help for homeowners, eventual enforcement, and insurance companies recognizing the risk reduction.
Michel argues that wildfire adaptation need not eliminate Berkeley’s greenery; it requires reorganizing plants farther from homes and developing a new landscape aesthetic over time.

Summary

Michel Thuati fell for Berkeley’s gardens

Producer Emmett Fitzgerald introduces Michel Thuati, a French graduate student who arrived in Berkeley in 1984 already fascinated by the American West. What exceeded his expectations was the vegetation: the variety, colors, and textures made the gardens feel like a fairy tale, especially compared with the hot, dusty French naval bases where he grew up. After graduate school, Michel and his wife bought an affordable Berkeley Hills fixer-upper and spent a decade investing nearly every spare minute and dollar in it. Michel’s central project was a dense garden of shrubs, figs, persimmons, jasmine, and vines that recreated the lushness he had first admired.

The Hillside Club made gardens part of Berkeley’s identity

David Mostardi, historian of the still-active Berkeley Hillside Club, explains that the group was founded in 1898 by Berkeley women who wanted to prevent the hills from being disfigured like San Francisco, where a rigid street grid and Victorian houses covered the slopes. They promoted roads that followed contours, went around rocks and oak trees, and connected architecture to the landscape. Architect Bernard Maybeck became their defining figure: a Paris-trained eccentric who wore red robes, ate fried potatoes, coffee, and donuts, and said, “Beauty is the essence of architecture.” His arts-and-crafts houses used simple forms and wood shingles rather than Victorian excess.

The ideal garden city was also a fire trap

The Hillside Club treated landscaping as more important than the house, joking that hillside architecture was “landscape gardening around a few rooms for use in case of rain.” Its pamphlets envisioned Berkeley as an immense garden, with trees and shrubs planted right up to homes and green canyons hiding most buildings. That vision ignored the hills’ tendency to burn. Wood-shingled houses, winding streets, and vegetation pressed against structures created serious fire hazards. On September 17, 1923, a fire spread from the upper hills to the flatlands in six hours, destroying many Maybeck houses, Maybeck’s own home, and the club’s clubhouse. Rebuilding added some stucco and fire-resistant materials, but the gardens largely remained.

Michel accepts that his garden is increasing his risk

As California experienced ten of its most destructive wildfires between 2015 and 2020, Michel’s wife became worried about their hilltop home, while Michel initially insisted they were safe. He eventually spent a year and a half reading roughly 400 to 600 wildfire-science papers and consulting prominent researchers. They told him the property was in a high-risk area and that vegetation against the house worsened the danger. He learned that houses commonly ignite from windborne embers landing on gutters, weeds, or dry landscaping, not necessarily from a wall of flame. Beginning in 2022, he cut down or moved plants, including a beloved fig tree, to create defensible space.

Defensible space required neighborhood cooperation

Michel learned that defensible space works best when surrounding properties also remove flammable material, because a neighbor’s burning house can ignite one’s own. He organized Firewise groups with nearby residents, but they lacked authority to require changes, leaving many dangerous gardens intact. Councilmember Brent Blackaby’s sense of urgency sharpened after the Los Angeles fires, whose coastal hillside setting and fall winds resembled Berkeley’s. Blackaby said he could not live with simply hoping for the best, so he worked with politicians and firefighters on the Ember Ordinance rather than waiting for slower state action.

Ember created a five-foot noncombustible zone

The ordinance’s central requirement is Zone Zero, the five feet immediately surrounding a structure. Fire-risk expert Dave Winokur says that, except for mature trees, the zone must contain no combustible material: no shrubs, wooden gates, or even jute doormats. The city initially targeted about 950 homes along Tilden Park, where a fire could send embers downhill toward roughly 10,000 homes. Residents also had to consider gutter guards and metal mesh over vents. Officials framed the plan as a tactical buffer: if 60% to 80% of a neighborhood eventually complied, insurance and fire-risk calculations could change for everyone downstream.

The ordinance collided with Berkeley’s architectural memory

Michel and his Firewise neighbors were thrilled by Ember, but Nextdoor quickly filled with opposition from residents who felt the city was forcing them to destroy beloved bougainvillea and other plants. Critics cited erosion, habitat loss, unequal burdens, and the fact that California was already preparing statewide Zone Zero rules. Some accused Michel personally of profiting from landscaping, which he denied. The deeper conflict was emotional: residents had chosen a historic hillside garden city and saw Ember as too much change too quickly. At the city council hearing, opponents invoked Iraq, fascism, and government tyranny, while supporters argued that the science and escalating fires justified action. The ordinance passed 9-0.

Implementation depends on money, volunteers, and enforcement

Ember passed in June 2025, and more than a year later California issued less stringent statewide rules covering a broader area of the Berkeley Hills. Michel says cost is a major obstacle, especially for elderly homeowners who cannot clear vegetation or replace fences themselves. His group organized a clearing event with 350 volunteers, a Gates and Fences Day attended by 200 homeowners, and more than 150 informal property assessments before official inspections. Michel compares compliance to herd immunity: helping one homeowner protects the neighborhood too. The fire department plans to allow time for residents to act but eventually expects to fine people who refuse.

A safer Berkeley landscape may still be beautiful

Councilmember Blackaby is negotiating with insurers, hoping they will credit residents if substantial portions of neighborhoods complete the work. At Michel’s home, contractors installed a metal fence while he showed the changes: removing a large wooden fence, rebuilding retaining walls, rock-mulching paths, and moving plants out of Zone Zero. He argues that the old Maybeck ideal—house and garden blending into one lush environment—cannot continue unchanged. The alternative is to decouple structures from vegetation with rocky paths and larger planting setbacks. Michel does not see this as eliminating greenery; he wants the same amount reorganized, including a new fig tree in a safer location, though mature gardens will take years to grow.

Show notes

Across the West, there's a contentious debate playing out over how to adapt homes and neighborhoods to this era of increasingly extreme wildfire risk. In Berkeley, California, it's become a particularly emotional fight because of a very specific architectural history that began all the way back in the 1890s. Emmett Fitzgerald reports on the new rules about what plants you can grow around your house.

Check out our previous episode on defensible space: Built to Burn

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