Fire Safety

TIPS: 10 Simple Things You Can Do To Improve Your Fire Safety

1. Clear leaves and needles from the roof, gutters, and under the deck of your home.
2. Remove branches within 10 feet of your chimney and dead branches overhanging your roof.
3. Make sure your house number is readily visible from the street.
4. Make sure your street is named or numbered, and a sign is visibly posted at each street intersection.
5. Stack woodpiles at least 30 feet from all structures and remove vegetation within 10 feet of woodpiles.
6. Maintain all plants by regular watering and by removing dead branches, leaves, and needles.
7. Cover your chimney outlet and stovepipe with a nonflammable screen of 1/2 inch or smaller mesh.
8. Clearly mark all emergency water sources.
9. Make sure your street name and house number are not duplicated elsewhere in the county.
10. Identify at least two exit routes from your neighborhood.

Defensible space refers to that area between a house and an oncoming wildfire where the vegetation has been modified to reduce the wildfire threat and which provides an opportunity for firefighters to safely defend the house. It is a key area that can make the difference between a house surviving a wildfire or being destroyed.

1. If your parcel is one acre or less, your home, improvements, and forest vegetation all constitute your defensible space and need to be managed in order to protect your family, your investments, and your native forest trees.
2. For owners of parcels larger than an acre, your defensible space is the Forest-Woodland Protection Zone where you can practice defensible space techniques to enhance the forest health and protect your portion of the habitat.
3. Determine the amount of defensible space necessary (see table below), property boundaries, and ownership of adjacent parcels.
4. Evaluate the area surrounding your home in terms of being a defensible space. Ask the questions:
• Are there any dead fuels?
• Is there a continuous horizontal layer of vegetation?
• Are there ladder fuels?
• Does the height of surface fuels (shrubs, grasses, etc.) exceed 18"?

1. Develop a plan for correcting the problems identified in Step 2, coordinate with adjacent landowners if necessary, and incorporate existing formal landscape features.
2. Secure necessary permits and have trees marked for removal by a qualified forester if applicable.
3. Implement the plan developed in Step 3.
4. Remove all slash generated by fuel modification efforts as soon as possible.
5. Maintain the defensible space on a routine basis.