Installing Your Firewise Landscape

You have a plan – now it’s time to make it real. Where to begin? Using the results of your Home Wildfire Evaluation and your landscape plan, begin to rank the things that need to be done to reduce your vulnerability to wildfire from the most important to the least and also the most expensive to the least.

You will quickly see that there are things you will need to wait to do, such as replacing a shake roof, because you currently do not have the money, the time, or the expertise. Other things will be easily identified as inexpensive or no cost to do and only needing a few hours or a weekend accomplish - these are the things to start with and do now.

Remember, the primary goal of a Firewise landscape is to decrease, rearrange, and/or eliminate fuels. Concentrate on the first 30 feet closest to the home and work your way out to 100 feet.

  • Removing highly flammable shrubs like junipers from around the foundations of your house and outbuildings.
  • Choose “fire-resistive” plant materials and concentrate plant materials in islands. Surround islands with nonflammable retaining walls and well-watered, short turf.
  • Trim branches away from chimneys and utility lines.
  • Clean debris from your roof and yard.
  • Move firewood away from structures and store it on a non-flammable pad of bare soil, gravel, or concrete.
  • Break up contiguous fuels. For example, instead of a wooden fence that is attached to wooden stairs that leads to a wooden deck you could replace the fence with chain link.
  • Remove combustible enclosures from around home, outbuildings, propane tanks and woodpiles. Many times these are wooden fences used to hide the garbage or keep children away from the propane tank. Replace these with non-flammable materials such as steel, wrought iron, or chain link.
  • If you have an irrigation system, make sure it is located in the correct place and working to insure optimal plant health.
  • Eliminate ladder fuel configurations.
  • Prune trees up so the lowest branches are 6-15 feet above the ground.

Beyond 100 feet

  • Treat a minimum distance of 100 feet around your home. Remove highly flammable brush, ladder configurations, and dead trees and shrubs.
  • Thin trees to a 10’ x 10’ or 12 ‘x 12’ spacing.