Firewise Landscaping.
Firewise – It Starts at Home.
Lush, beautifully landscaped and well-maintained surrounds provide the best fire protection.
For a fire to burn you need fuel--and firewise landscaping is all about decreasing, rearranging, and eliminating fuels. We decrease fuels by thinning and pruning forests and removing brush; rearrange fuels by choosing particular plant materials over others or disrupting their continuity with non-flammable surfaces such as concrete and rock; eliminate fuels by removing them from the landscape and maintaining that removal through the years.
Understanding the theory behind firewise landscaping, and why things are done the way they are, is an important first step in achieving your goals. Towering flames and huge columns of smoke are most noticeable when experiencing a wildfire. And though some homes and properties are consumed by raging flames, it is little things that set off 60% of home ignitions: embers that have flown in from up to 5 miles away landing in the bristles of a boot scraper on your porch; a smolder stick landing in your foundation planting of junipers; or a slowly creeping ground fire that reaches fuels near your home and ignites a deck piling.
By treating your home and immediate surroundings you give yourself a huge advantage over untreated properties. Crown fires will drop to the ground with the thinning of trees. Ground fires will not be able to advance when they encounter a hardscape element such as a rock wall. Embers will not be able to flare and ignite structures if they land on non-flammable surfaces.
What’s in it for you?
Wildland firefighters will often not protect homes that aren’t Firewise and don’t have adequate defensible space, both for safety reasons and because such efforts are unlikely to be successful. Fire and land management agencies cannot help prevent wildfire disasters without homeowner participation. If you live in the wildland/urban interface (WUI), recognize that your home and immediate surroundings belongs to you. This means that you, as the homeowner, have the primary responsibility for reducing your home’s vulnerability. Surrounding yourself with a lush, beautiful, and well-maintained landscape is your best defense against losses from wildfires.