SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- After the Palisades Fire, many people were surprised to see areas where a single house was still standing after others around it had been reduced to ash. Cal Fire says in the case of one Malibu home it was thanks to home hardening, and now they’re launching a pilot program to do the same here in San Diego County. When a wildfire tears through a community, there’s little time to pack up and get out. That’s why Cal Fire is encouraging people to prepare their properties ahead of time. “We haven’t had any precipitation in the last few weeks, months, so all that fuel is extremely dry out there,” said Mike Cornette, a Cal Fire captain. Evacuations ordered as crews battle brush fire near homes in Poway The home hardening initiative, part of the California Wildfire Mitigation Program, is running a pilot program in Dulzura in hopes of getting ahead of the next wildfire. “This is one part of it and it’s a very crucial part to make sure that we’re doing the best we can at protecting the residents of San Diego County,” said Cornette. The program provides necessary funding to create defensible space and retrofit homes. “They’ve sealed all of the access points into the under spaces of the house into the attics with fine mesh,” said Cornette. The process is done to ensure embers will not enter the attic or crawl spaces. They also created defensible space using river rock and retrofitted fire-resistant siding. “It’s tested to resist embers and wildfire,” Cornette explained. A resident at a Dulzura property that is one of the hardened homes which completed the pilot program showed us the updates. He did not have time to talk on camera because he said he had just been notified his power might be shut off and he was busy preparing. The county said the program will be made available to other areas of San Diego County and the state soon. Homeowners in Dulzura are invited to apply for the program on the county’s website – rental properties are also eligible, but the legal homeowner needs to apply.