Leaning flammable stuff against your home could make you lose it.

Photo by Olivier Guillard on Unsplash

Defensible space can range from heavily complex and expensive tasks, like adding concrete fuel breaks along your home and changing the material of your roof and siding, to the smaller details that you don’t second think. But, small innocuous actions like stacking wood below your home, gazebo, or more, could be what leads fire right to your home.

So, what’s something we all do that we probably shouldn’t? Leaning stuff against our home’s wooden structures. This is something that you don’t necessarily have to remedy immediately, but it’s something to remove from your habit list, and definitely something to remember if wildfire seems like it’s coming your way.

So, why is leaning stuff against your home bad? Long story short, leaving stuff against your home that’s flammable can be hit by embers from a wildfire and catch on fire, and then pass that along to the rest of your home.

Let’s say your home is in the mountains and you have some siding that’s kinda fire resistant to embers, but can still ignite. Maybe if a couple of stray embers hit it and everything else is perfect, your home is fine.

But, fires don’t only spread through embers: they also spread through direct flame contact, and when the surrounding area becomes so hot that things spontaneously combust.

So, let’s go back to the home example. Imagine you have the same siding, but now a piece of very dry plywood you meant to use for a project is just hanging out there. An ember hits the piece of wood, which does ignite. The prolonged exposure to flames in turn, ignite siding that otherwise wouldn’t have ignited.

If you have home building materials that are completely ignition resistant (e.g: You live in a concrete house, you have metal siding with reinforced windows, etc) you might not need to worry about small details like that. But very few people, if any, have completely ignition resistant homes, decking, and gardens.

So, stay safe. Don’t leave flammable stuff around flammable structures of your home, and DEFINITELY don’t do it during fire season. These structures should include (but are not limited to) gazebos, sheds, decks or patios, carports, your home, and anything else you might have.

Worried about fire season? You and me both, honestly. That’s why I built this free wildfire assessment tool -> https://assessment.faura.us <- with my incredible friend Valkyrie, who’s been working with homeowners in wildfire prone areas for a few years. It’s easier than reading every article on the site to figure out what you need to do, AND it keeps us employed. Win win.