Newsom Signs SB 894 Creating California Wildfire Resilience Loan Program for Home Hardening
SACRAMENTO, Oct. 13 — California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed SB 894, the Wildfire Mitigation Affordability Act, creating a state-backed, low-interest loan program to help property owners pay for home hardening and defensible-space improvements, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported on Tuesday.
The measure, authored by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Pacific Palisades, passed the Legislature with unanimous bipartisan support. The resulting California Wildfire Resilience Loan Program will be implemented by the State Treasurer's Office and is modeled on California's GoGreen energy-finance platform, which has helped residents finance energy-efficient upgrades.
Allen said the program will help homeowners and businesses access low-interest financing to harden their properties and create defensible space before the next wildfire, and that such steps are needed for safer communities and a more stable insurance market. Eric Horne, California director at Megafire Action, the bill's sponsor, called the law a historic win for Californians. The report cited a UC Berkeley study finding that structures with key home-hardening and defensible-space features were more than twice as likely to survive a wildfire as those without mitigation work.
(Source: Santa Monica Daily Press)
Source: Santa Monica Daily Press
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 加州山火过后被烧毁的住宅区航拍（FEMA 资料图），Public domain（Wikimedia Commons，摄影/作者：Andrea Booher）
