How Clearing Brush Protects Your Home From Wildland Fire

In 2018, the Ranch Fire burned over 410,000 acres in California, becoming the largest and deadliest fire in California’s history. Many of the homes that burned were miles away from the advancing flame front. How do the lessons we learned in California help prepare your property for wildfire?

Protecting your home from wildfire is not just about clearing brush! There are a few other vital things you can do this year to help.

Clearing defensible space around your home is one of the most important things we can help with.

How Far Should You Clear?

In most cases, clearing brush 100 feet from buildings is plenty. With this type of clearing, more is not better! Removing all the trees actually allows more fire brands to accumulate on your house, which is why houses catch fire miles from the actual flame front.

The notion that if 100 feet of defensible space is good, then 200-300 feet must be better is false. Creating large areas of clearance with little or no vegetation creates a "bowling alley" for embers. Without the interference of thinned, lightly irrigated vegetation, the house becomes the perfect ember catcher. - http://www.californiachaparral.org/bprotectingyourhome.html

Does your house have brush growing too close?

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What Should We Leave?

We work with you to mark which trees, shrubs and plants you would like to keep close to your house. We don’t advocate for clear-cutting large areas of vegetation! This actually makes your property more vulnerable to fire brands, and takes away the feeling of living close to the outdoors.

If we’re clearing outside the 100’ Defensible Space zone near the house, we need to identify any mature trees that need to stay in place. These “keeper trees” will flourish in the years after mechanical brush clearing because they no longer have to compete for water, soil or sunlight. These trees are vital for keeping fire brands away from your home!

When choosing which trees or shrubs to remove, choose the ones that have the poorest vigor. Signs of poor vigor include numerous bare or spindly branches, poor color in the leaves or needles, and evidence of parasites, such as insects or fungus. -https://www.oregon.gov/ODF/Documents/Fire/UrbanInterface/thinning_basics_0106.pdf

Main Points

If you live in a rural area, clearing the brush around your house is one of the best ways to protect your property from wildfire. Don’t overdo it, often a single day of clearing gives the most benefit! There are different levels of clearing for the areas around your house and the woodland areas on the rest of your property.