Is Your Landscaping “Fire Safe”?
At the end of May, Cal Fire personnel (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) came through our Jamestown neighborhood inspecting properties for compliance with defensible space regulations. My wild-at-heart landscaping was found wanting. We have learned, from places like Paradise, Palisades and Altadena, that no one in California is safe from wildfire. We, who live in the WUI or Wildland Urban Interface, have a responsibility to ourselves and our neighbors to do our part to reduce the threat of wildfire.
To create defensible space around your home, the landscape is divided into zones. Zone 0 is a five-foot ember-resistant border around buildings. Zone 1 stretches from the outside edge of zone 0 to 30 feet from the building. Zone 2 extends from 30 feet to 100 feet (or the property line).
Each zone carries specific landscaping and home hardening recommendations. According to Cal Fire, flying embers can ignite a home one mile ahead of a wildfire. Zone 0 is critical for protecting homes from flying embers. Eliminate flammable vegetation and materials, make sure gutters are clean or screened, and that building vents have fire-resistant covers installed. In zone 0, Yana Valachovic, University of California Forest Advisor and UC ANR Fire Network researcher, advises that Californians will be better protected by losing their love of foundation plantings. Move individual, separated specimen plants away from buildings into the 30-foot zone.
In zone 1, remove dead and dying grass, plants, shrubs, trees, branches, leaves, weeds and needles. In my case, that included California poppies setting seed. Prune up and separate plants to eliminate ladder fuels. If you still burn wood (as I do), move wood piles outside of zone 1 and cover with a fire-resistant cover or surround with 10 feet of bare mineral soil.
Zone 2 requires vertical and horizontal plant spacing dependent on slope. Prune tree branches to a minimum of 6 feet above ground; trees should be separated by at least 10 feet. The steeper the slope, the farther apart trees and shrubs should be. Trim grasses to a height of four inches. Loose surface litter used as mulch (“bare soil bad/organic matter good”) can have a depth up to 3 inches. Propane tanks need 10 feet of clearance to bare mineral soil, with no flammable vegetation for another 10 feet. My 15-year-old monster lavender that disguised my tank had to go!
By the time of inspection #3, I had removed 2-3 cubic yards of plant material, including rambler roses, leggy salvias, hydrangeas, and magnolia leaves from my small suburban yard. With a huge thank you to friends with pick-up trucks and trailers, my efforts passed inspection. In conclusion, I want to give a shout-out to the very polite and soft-spoken Cal Fire personnel who performed inspections. They educated from a research and science-based perspective while being diligent and persistent in trying to protect us from ourselves. Let’s all do our part to help them and us!
Rebecca Miller-Cripps is a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener.
