Meet The Men Behind Zone 0

  • Dave Winnacker — Retired California fire chief; Marine Corps reservist (brigadier general); Hoover Institution Veteran Fellow. In the podcast, he argues that regulation, enforcement, and insurance pricing are needed to achieve “micro-work at scale” on private parcels and calls Zone 0 an “unlock” for risk reduction.

  • Donnie Hasseltine — Cybersecurity executive; former Marine commander; Hoover Institution Veteran Fellow. He promotes using catastrophe models and shared datasets so insurers can price homeowner behavior, and backs a zero-to-five-feet vegetation ban as a cornerstone of community wildfire adaptation.

Why their perspective matters: Beyond public service credentials, both champions operate in the risk-modeling / evacuation-software space. Their policy recipe—uniform parcel compliance verified for insurers—aligns with a growing industry of scoring, audits, certifications, and re-inspections.

What they’re proposing (in their own words)

  • “Defense in depth” for neighborhoods. Import military perimeter logic (obstacle belts, QRF timelines) to residential blocks.

  • Zone 0 as keystone. Remove anything combustible within 5 feet of structures—explicitly including wooden fences.

  • Enforcement + price signals. Because “your asset becomes my peril” when homes are close, they argue the state must mandate and enforce uniform compliance and let insurance markets penalize holdouts.

  • Data-driven policing of risk. Feed parcel-level mitigation data into catastrophe models used by carriers to set premiums and renewals.

Representative quotes from the podcast (short excerpts):

  • “There will be a state-wide regulation to remove anything that will burn… within 5 ft of a structure, including wooden fences.”

  • “If your home starts to burn… it will burn my house down… irregardless of the fact that I prepared my home.”

  • “That does require regulation and enforcement and price signaling so that people can see the benefits.”

  • “It’s easier to launch a satellite than to get people to clear out brush and grass within five feet of their house.”

Sources & transparency

This page summarizes positions stated by Dave Winnacker and Donnie Hasseltine in a podcast titled Firestorm Economics: How Veterans Are Battling Wildfire Risk in California. Quotations above are short excerpts for identification and commentary. Readers are encouraged to review the full transcript for context.

Bottom line: Zone 0 is an insurance-driven, one-size mandate built for suburbia—not for Los Angeles blocks where homes are only a few feet apart. LA needs structure-first, urban-specific fire safety that protects both people and place.

Receipts: What the Zone 0 proponents’ own website says about dense neighborhoods

XyloPlan (the firm co-founded by Winnacker and Hasseltine) states:

“When Structure Separation Distance is less than 50 feet, defensible space and home hardening measures cease to be effective due to higher and longer heat flux generated by an adjacent burning structure.”

Translation for Los Angeles and other dense cities: On blocks where homes are 5–10 feet apart, Zone 0’s plant removal cannot stop structure-to-structure fire spread. The policy they’re promoting can’t work where we live—and it sacrifices shade, moisture, privacy, and habitat for no fire safety benefit.

Why this matters

This admission confirms what residents of dense cities already know: once a home ignites in a tightly packed neighborhood, radiant heat and flame exposure from the neighboring structure overwhelm yard clearance rules. In other words, Zone 0 is the wrong tool for urban fire. Real protection in LA comes from larger setbacks, firefighter resources, and municipal water delivery strategies—not blanket five-foot vegetation bans.