5 Things You Can Do Right Now To Implement Wildfire Prevention

The height of fire season is almost upon us and if you’re like many Americans in high-risk wildfire zones, you’ve yet to start on your defensible space and wildfire prep! Not to worry, we’ve compiled 5 things that you can do right now that will aid in your preparation journey. These things are all relatively simple and both protect and educate on the dangers of fire season. 

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash

Figure out if you’re in a high-risk wildfire zone.

 Many people don’t even know their home is among the ones that could burn year over year. These statistics change every couple of years but areas are becoming increasingly more fire-prone as we see dryer seasons and more drought in the US. Fun fact: migration patterns tell us that more people tend to move into wildfire-prone areas, even when the area has been scarred for over a decade! Out of every natural disaster, wildfires are the only one that doesn’t serve as a natural deterrant from outsiders moving in. 

It’s important to know where you stand; you can check out this link to tell you more about your general wildfire risk.

Remove garden beds from the sides of the property.

If you’re new, I’d like to explain defensible space a bit. Defensible space is the area surrounding a structure that has been mitigated from wildfire risk. Typically, this means any space that we’ve reduced vegetation on or around a property. Now, there are a few things that are recommended as general starting points and one of these is garden beds.

We underestimate how much power that garden bed holds but just wait until a spark lands in a flowerbed during the hottest month of the year and you might have some trouble. Usually, garden beds are made of wood of some sort, which might be a great option for kindling, but it’s definitely not favored for protecting your home from wildfire. Even if the garden isn’t made of wood, many small garden plants are flammable and some can even become dangerous fire-bombs because of their sap!

The oregano, tomatoes, and cucumbers will do just fine a few more feet from your property. That might just be the thing that saves your home. 

Check your vents.

Ventilation is a huge deal when it comes to wildfires and you need to be prepared before the height of the season. Depending on where you’re located, there will most likely be some sort of vegetation crowding your vent. If that’s the case, you’ll want to clear out whatever vegetation surrounds the area, whether that be bushes, flowers, or even potentially trees! We want to focus on the dead brush as well so prioritize those areas that need the most cleaning up. 

In addition to the dead brush catching on fire outside of your vent, rogue embers have been known to get separated from the wildfire miles apart just to land in front of your property’s vent, and it doesn’t stop there. The embers that get into your home can light and burn the home from the inside out. You can install a fine-mesh screen to protect against instances like this, cleaning every month or so to prevent excess buildup.

TLDR: Remove vegetation and install mesh around screens.

Set a budget.

You’d be surprised how expensive some of this wildfire prevention work can be. Even removing a single tree can be anywhere from a couple hundred to thousands of dollars. So we have to be prepared to spend whatever our budget allows, and this works! There is a certain art to the tree service, one that involves a choice amount of detail. If you’d like the work to be super detailed, then that work is going to cost a lot more. 

Allocate a decent amount to your first time doing mitigation work, we recommend from 10-20k to start and around 2-5k to maintain year over year. That sounds like a lot of money but it pays to remind residents that the average amount of property damage from wildfire is multiple million of dollars while the average insurance payout is 224k. 

So spend wisely!

Talk to your neighbors about leading the fight.

Educating others is a hard but powerful tool to lead the battle against wildfires together! The more people know about their risk, things they can do to protect themselves, and know others who are doing the same, the more work gets done. Do your neighbors know they’re in potential harm’s way? What have they done to mitigate their risk?

Even if you change one person’s mind about defensible space, it makes the neighborhood more safe. And Faura can help! We manage the process of wildfire prevention so that neighborhoods of all shapes and sizes, needs and budgets, don’t have to worry about applying for grants or hiring the right contractor. We’ve got it covered! 

Reach out to us at valkyrie@faura.us for more info!