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BEING READY—WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS

Being ready for wildfire starts with maintaining an adequate defensible space and hardening your home by using fire resistant building materials. Defensible space is the buffer you create by removing dead plants, grass and weeds. This buffer helps to keep the fire away from your home. Hardening your home means using construction materials that can help your home withstand flying embers finding weak spots in the construction, which can result in your house catching fire. It takes the combination of both defensible space and the hardening of your home to give your house the best chance of surviving a wildfire.

Luxury House

Wildfire Specialists Inspects for Defensible Space

Wildfire Specialists can determine steps a homeowners should take to increase the chance of their home surviving a wildfire.

MAINTAIN DEFENSIBLE SPACE

Keep your property lean and green to help protect your family and home.

Defensible space is essential to improve your home’s chance of surviving a wildfire. It’s the buffer you create between a building on your property and the grass, trees, shrubs, or any wildland area that surround it. This space is needed to slow or stop the spread of wildfire and it helps protect your home from catching fire—either from direct flame contact or radiant heat. Defensible space is also important for the protection of the firefighters defending your home.

Defensible Space Zone

Two zones make up the required 100 feet of defensible space.

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Zone 1

Zone 1 extends 30 feet* from buildings, structures, decks, etc.

  • Remove all dead plants, grass and weeds (vegetation).

  • Remove dead or dry leaves and pine needles from your yard, roof and rain gutters.

  • Remove branches that hang over your roof and keep dead branches 10 feet away from your chimney.

  • Trim trees regularly to keep branches a minimum of 10 feet from other trees.

  • Relocate wood piles to Zone 2.

  • Remove or prune flammable plants and shrubs near windows.

  • Remove vegetation and items that could catch fire from around and under decks.

  • Create a separation between trees, shrubs and items that could catch fire, such as patio furniture, wood piles, swing sets, etc.

Zone 2

Zone 2 extends 100 feet out from buildings, structures, decks, etc.

  • Cut or mow annual grass down to a maximum height of 4 inches.

  • Create horizontal space between shrubs and trees. (See diagram)

  • Create vertical space between grass, shrubs and trees. (See diagram)

  • Remove fallen leaves, needles, twigs, bark, cones, and small branches. However, they may be permitted to a depth of 3 inches.

*Check with your local fire department for any additional defensible space or weed abatement ordinances.

Plant and Tree Spacing

The spacing between grass, shrubs, and trees is crucial to reduce the spread of wildfires. The spacing needed is determined by the type and size of brush and trees, as well as the slope of the land. For example, a property on a steep slope with larger vegetation requires greater spacing between trees and shrubs than a level property that has small, sparse vegetation.

Vertical Spacing

Remove all tree branches at least 6 feet from the ground.

Allow extra vertical space between shrubs and trees. Lack of vertical space can allow a fire to move from the ground to the brush to the treetops like a ladder.

To determine the proper vertical spacing between shrubs and the lowest branches of trees, use the formula below.

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Example: A five foot shrub is growing near a tree. 3×5 = 15 feet of clearance needed between the top of the shrub and the lowest tree branch.

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Horizontal Spacing

Horizontal spacing depends on the slope of the land and the height of the shrubs or trees. Check the chart below to determine spacing distance.

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HARDENING YOUR HOME

Flying embers from a wildfire can destroy homes up to a mile away. Taking the necessary measures to harden (prepare) your home can help increase its chance of survival when wildfire strikes.

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FIRE-RESISTANT LANDSCAPING

A fire-resistant landscape isn’t necessarily the same thing as a well-maintained yard. This type of landscape uses fire-resistant plants that are strategically planted to resist the spread of fire to your home. Fire-resistant plants are great in California because they are often drought tolerant, too.

The good news is, you don’t need to spend a lot of money to make your landscape fire-resistant. And you will find that a fire-resistant landscape can increase your property value and conserve water while beautifying your home.

 

Choose Fire-Resistant Plants and Materials

  • Create fire-resistant zones with stone walls, patios, decks and roadways.

  • Use rock, mulch, flower beds and gardens as ground cover for bare spaces and as effective firebreaks.

  • There are no “fire-proof” plants. Select high-moisture plants that grow close to the ground and have a low sap or resin content.

  • Choose fire-retardant plant species that resist ignition such as rockrose, ice plant and aloe.

  • Select fire-resistant shrubs such as hedging roses, bush honeysuckles, currant, cotoneaster, sumac and shrub apples.

  • Plant hardwood, maple, poplar and cherry trees that are less flammable than pine, fir and other conifers.

Check your local nursery, landscape contractor or county’s service for advice on fire-resistant plants that are suitable for your area.

Here are some examples of  fire-resistant plants:

French Lavender

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FRENCH LAVENDER is a fire resistant plant that thrives in dry growing conditions. This low-key plant will add beauty to your defensible space landscape.

Red Monkey Flower

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The fire resistant RED MONKEY FLOWER yields beautiful bright red blossoms. This evergreen shrub is also drought tolerant and a California native species.

California Fuchsia

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The deer resistant CALIFORNIA FUCHSIA has bright orange-red funnel-shaped flowers. This perennial is fire safe and needs little to no water once established.

Sage

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SAGE is a low maintenance plant that provides fire resistance while being drought tolerant.

California Lilac

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The CALIFORNIA LILAC is the name of this colorful shrub. This fire resistant plant is drought tolerant and is covered with small pink and purple flowers when in bloom.

Society Garlic

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This common landscape plant is a smart choice, the SOCIETY GARLIC is fire safe and grows in drought prone regions.

Ornamental Strawberry

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The ORNAMENTAL STRAWBERRY is a great ground cover plant. This fire resistant plan can be used to give a lush look to your landscape.

Yellow Ice Plant

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The YELLOW ICE PLANT is a very low-growing ground cover with succulent, green foliage. This succulent requires very little watering and is fire safe.

Coreopsis

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The COREOPSIS PLANT is popular due to its tolerance to a wide variety of soil types, Its fire safe, making it the perfect addition to your landscape.

California Red Bud

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The CALIFORNIA REDBUD is the name of this colorful shrub. The fire resistant plant is drought tolerant and is covered with small pink and purple flowers when in bloom.

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