Emmett FitzGerald
Producer at 99% Invisible who came to the Bay Area from Rhode Island, where he covered environmental news for PRI's Living on Earth.
“Wildfire experts love to say that what most determines whether your house will burn down in a fire is whether your neighbor's house burns down.”
99% Invisible · Product & Design · November 2026
Context
FitzGerald is explaining why defensible space around a home only works if everyone nearby does it too, which is why a Berkeley Hills resident organized his neighbors to clear their gardens together.
Transcript
But Michelle Thuadi hacking away. He cut down a lot of plants and transplanted others further away from the structure. It was hard work physically and emotionally. He had spent a lot of time and effort growing that garden, and he had deep feelings about many of the plants.
The fig tree, particularly the fig tree. Fig trees have a smell. I can smell a fig tree sometimes from two or three hundred yards away. And walking in my garden, every time I would smell the fig tree, and ugh, cutting it was very difficult.
As painful as it was, Michel was committed. And little by little, he re-landscaped the entire property with defensible space in mind. But the thing about defensible space is that it really only works if everyone around you does it too. Wildfire experts love to say that what most determines whether your house will burn down in a fire is whether your neighbor's house burns down. And so Michelle Thuadi organizing with his neighbors. They created a series of fire-wise groups and began working together to try to make the entire neighborhood safer. Still, they didn't have any real political power to mandate changes. And so while they made some progress on defensible space with some houses, many other gardens remained overgrown and dangerous. Around this time, a new city…
This morning, the firestorm officials had feared becoming a reality in the coastal neighborhood Pacific Palisades, multiple homes completely engulfed in flames with desperate residents rushing to get out.
The parallels between the Berkeley Hills and the Palisades were obvious to Blackabee. They're both coastal hillside communities with perilous fall winds. And as he watched the Palisades burn on the news, Blackaby felt a growing sense of terror.
Yeah, I mean, it was scary. I think you always kind of knew from an academic perspective, intellectual perspective, yeah, this is my responsibility, but it became really real. Driving through the neighborhood, walking around with my kids, and it just that responsibility, I just, I couldn't live…
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