The Christening
On April 11, we officially "christened" Lamorinda Ready. We didn't do it with a ribbon-cutting or a press release. We did it with a backpack sprayer, 15 gallons of clear liquid, and a wood fence that Sebastien Burkhardt describes as a "matchstick."
Sebastien is the 19-year-old CEO and co-founder of Clore Wildfire Defense. He and his co-founder, Barrett Deng, spent their gap year before college building a company around a single, arresting idea: that homeowners deserve the same caliber of ignition-resistance tools as the forest service, but formulated for the places where we actually live.
We invited Sebastien to our property to demonstrate how a long-term retardant fits into a modern hardening strategy. For us, this wasn't just a product test; it was a baseline for what this site is about. We aren't here to just aggregate PDFs. We are here to do the work, test the layers, and report back on what actually makes sense for a Lamorinda yard.
Sebastien Burkhardt demonstrating the perimeter application. Note the 'matchstick' fence in the background—a primary target for treatment.
The "Neighbor Domino" Concept
Standing on our side path, Sebastien pointed past our fence toward the neighboring property. "It's about working with your neighbors as much as it is about building a defensible space yourself," he said. "Because if you have a big blow torch right next to your house on fire, your house will probably catch one way or another."
He calls it the Neighbor Domino effect. In the WUI (Wildland-Urban Interface), fire doesn't just move through the trees; it moves through the neighborhood.
"Spraying as many of them as you can is a big effect because they're kind of like dominoes. So even if you spray one home or two homes, if three homes down they're not sprayed and it starts catching from there... it's really sad, but if you have three homes that are not on fire and just a fire a hill away, you're much less likely to catch on fire." — Sebastien Burkhardt
This is the core of the Lamorinda Ready philosophy. Resilience isn't a solo sport. When you harden your home, you aren't just protecting your own equity; you are breaking the chain of ignition for the house next door.
How it Works: The Science of Dry Protection
Most of us are familiar with fire foams or gels—the white suds you see on TV during a "last stand" evacuation. Those products work by keeping surfaces wet. Once they dry out (often in a matter of hours), the protection is gone.
Clore is different. It is a long-term retardant designed to work while dry. It treats the cellulose fibers of the wood or vegetation itself, making them chemically resistant to ignition.
Technical Sidebar: The Clore Formulation
- Dry Effectiveness: Unlike gels, Clore provides protection for months, not hours.
- Toxicity: It carries an EPA Category IV rating (the lowest hazard tier). Its oral LD50 is greater than 5,000 mg/kg, making it acutely less toxic than common table salt.
- Durability: The product stays effective until it is washed away by significant rainfall—typically a threshold of 2-3 inches.
- Substrate: It is designed for "Class A" protection on vegetation, wooden fences, and other unpainted cellulose materials.
Fitting into Zone Zero
One of the most frequent questions we get is: "If I spray this, do I still have to clear my brush?"
The answer, per the MOFD (Moraga-Orinda Fire District) inspections that began this April, is a firm yes. No spray is a substitute for the "Big Three": a Class A roof, 1/8-inch mesh vent screens, and a clean Zone Zero (the 0-to-5-foot perimeter around your foundation).
We specifically avoided spraying inside our foundation's five-foot buffer. That area should be mineral—gravel, stone, or bare soil. We used Clore where it belongs: on the "Stage 4" fuels that you can't easily remove. The shared property-line fence. The privacy hedge. The dry grass on the hillside behind the shed.
The 'matchstick' fence. Treating these long runs of wood can prevent them from acting as a fuse that leads fire directly to the structure.
The Founding Moment
Clore's origin story isn't in a Silicon Valley lab; it's in the Canadian wildfire smoke that drifted into Boston on July 21, 2021. Sebastien and Barrett were there on a family trip and realized that wildfire wasn't just a "California problem"—it was a national infrastructure crisis.
"It initially started with us trying to give firefighters additional tools, but we realized they already have a good arsenal, but homeowners have next to nothing. And that's where we started looking into what can homeowners use that will protect properties, but at the same time won't damage them from what they're using." — Sebastien Burkhardt
Since then, the product has been deployed in the 2025 LA wildfires (protecting properties in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones) and the August 2025 Pickett Fire in Calistoga. At our home, we saw why it's gaining traction: it’s simple enough for a homeowner to apply in an afternoon with a backpack sprayer.
What We Learned
The christening wasn't just about the product. It was about the shift in mindset. When you spray your fence, you stop looking at it as a boundary and start looking at it as a system.
If you're waiting for insurance carriers to lower your rates before you act, you're playing a losing game. Resilience is the goal; the insurance discount is the byproduct. By the time the carriers catch up to the science of long-term retardants, the season will be over.
We treated our property because we want to be the "neighbor who didn't catch." We want to be the reason the dominoes stopped falling.
The broader view. In these hills, your defense is only as strong as the community's coordination.
Next Steps:
- Read the full technical profile of Clore.
- Check your Zone Zero compliance.
- Join the conversation in our next neighborhood briefing.