Defensible Space Score assessment

About this assessment

The Defensible Space Score is a free self-assessment of the ground around your house. You answer fourteen questions about vegetation, spacing and the first five feet against your walls, and the score is calculated from your answers by a published, versioned methodology. The same answers produce the same number every time. The measures are not ours: they are the items California defensible space guidance sets out. It takes around five minutes.

What to have on hand

• The property address, so your assessment can be saved and returned to later. The address is not part of the scoring arithmetic.
• A few minutes outside. Several questions ask you to look at something, so it helps to be at the property.
• Optionally, photographs or a walkaround video. These are never required and they never add points. They narrow the range shown around your score, and they can correct an answer, after which the score is recalculated from the corrected answers.

What you get back

• A score on a 0 to 100 scale, with a disclosed floor of 5, so the arithmetic never bottoms out at zero.
• A range around that score. It is a declared uncertainty band saying how much the number could move once someone actually looks at the property. It is not a statistical estimate.
• An evidence tier recording what the score is based on: answers only, answers plus photographs, or answers plus a complete walkaround. An assessment built on answers alone caps at 90.
• A documented list of which defensible space measures your property already meets, the open items where you answered "Not sure", and prioritised next steps. Answering "Not sure" is left out of the arithmetic on both sides and does not lower your score.

This is not an inspection. Nobody visits the property. An inspector, a fire safe council or your insurer will each want their own verification.