A Specialty Within Full-Service Construction
Fire-Resistant Construction Across the Bay Area and Wine Country
From the Oakland Hills to the Glass Fire. Robin Nielsen has been building fire-resistant homes before the codes required it.
The Reality
Fire is no longer a wine-country story. It's a Northern California story.
Mavericks Builders is a full-service bespoke general contractor — custom homes, remodels, ADUs, additions, commercial, and winery estates. Fire-resistant construction is a specialty within that complete range, not the firm's only offering.
Every market Robin serves now sits inside, or beside, a fire hazard zone. Marin hillsides. San Francisco's WUI neighborhoods. The entire Napa Valley. The question is no longer whether to build for fire — it's whether your builder actually knows how.
Robin has been detailing ignition-resistant assemblies, ember-resistant vents, and defensible-space-ready sites for years — long before Chapter 7A and Title 24, Part 7 made them mandatory. This isn't a checkbox on her estimate. It's how they build.
Section 01 — Bay Area Fire Risk
The Bay Area burns, too.
The Oakland Hills Fire (1991)
1,520 acres. 3,354 homes destroyed. 25 deaths — the deadliest urban wildfire in U.S. history at the time. It happened in the heart of the East Bay, not the wilderness.
Marin County's Very High Fire Hazard Zones
Mill Valley, Tiburon, and the county's hillside communities sit inside multiple Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. Beautiful, wooded, and exposed.
San Francisco's Own WUI Zones
Twin Peaks, Bernal Heights, and Glen Canyon carry mandatory fire-resistant building requirements. Even the city has a wildland-urban interface.
Expanding Maps (2024–2025)
CAL FIRE's 2024 updates expanded hazard zones throughout the Bay Area, and new Local Responsibility Area Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps released in February–March 2025 widened requirements further.
Section 02 — Napa Valley's Fire Record
Six decades. A landscape rebuilt by fire.
The verified record speaks for itself.
Section 03 — The Regulatory Landscape
The codes finally caught up to how Robin already builds.
- California Title 24, Part 7 — effective January 1, 2026: stricter fire-resistant building standards, statewide.
- CBC Chapter 7A — governs roofing, siding, exterior walls, windows, decks, soffits, and vents in fire-prone areas.
- Class A roof assembly — required, tested to ASTM E108 / UL 790.
- Defensible space zones — Zone 0 (0–5 ft), Zone 1 (5–30 ft), Zone 2 (30–100 ft), each with its own requirements.
- Updated FHSZ maps — 2024–2025 revisions expanded mandatory-compliance areas across the Bay Area and Napa.
- Robin's track record — she's been building to these standards for years, in both the Bay Area and wine country, before they were required.
Section 04 — How We Build It
A whole-home system, not a single product.
Class A Assemblies
Class A roofs, ignition-resistant siding, and fire-rated exterior wall assemblies that deny embers a foothold.
Ember-Resistant Detailing
Tempered and multi-pane glazing, ember-resistant vents, sealed soffits, and metal flashing at every vulnerable transition.
Non-Combustible Materials
Non-combustible or ignition-resistant decking, framing details, and under-deck enclosures engineered for ember intrusion.
Defensible Space Planning
Zone 0–2 planning integrated into the site design from day one — hardscape, plant selection, and clearances done right.
Resilience Systems
On-site water storage, backup power, and ember-defense systems for properties beyond easy reach of emergency services.
Green + Fire as One
Fire-hardening and high-performance green building specified together — so neither compromises the other.
Section 05 — Why Robin
The only contractor who truly understands both Bay Area hillside fire risk and Napa Valley's wine-country devastation.
No competitor bridges both markets with this depth. Robin has watched these fires reshape the region for thirty years — and they build homes engineered to be the ones still standing.
Request a Fire-Resistant Construction Consultation
Building new, remodeling, or rebuilding after a fire — Robin will walk your site and your risk with you.
Fire-resistant construction is one specialty within Mavericks Builders' full-service range of custom homes, remodels, ADUs, additions, commercial, and winery estate work.