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Homeowner Fire Season Precautions

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Fire officials have begun to urge homeowners to take safety precautions for an early fire season.

Measures recommended by the National Interagency Fire Center to protect homes from wildfires:

-Use fire resistant material, such as tile, slate, sheet iron, aluminum, brick, or stone, when building a house.

-Treat existing materials, such as wood siding, cedar shakes, exterior wood paneling, or other highly combustible materials, with fire retardant chemicals.

-Regularly clean roof surfaces and gutters of pine needs, leaves and branches to avoid the accumulation of flammable materials.

-Remove portions of any tree extending within 10 feet of the opening of any stove or chimney.

-Space landscape vegetation so that fire can not be carried to the house or surrounding vegetation.

-Keep tree branches 15 feet above the ground.

-Maintain a fuel break around the house.

-Dispose of stove or fireplace ashes and charcoal briquettes only after soaking them in a metal pail of water.

-Store gasoline in an approved safety can away from the house.

-Propane tanks should be far enough away for valves to be shut off in case of fire.

-All combustibles such as firewood, picnic tables, boats, etc., should be kept away from the house.

-Keep a garden hose connected at all times.

-Have fire tools handy such as, a ladder long enough to reach the roof, a shovel, a rake and a bucket for water.

-Each home should have at least two different entrance and exit routes.

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