As fires become a more common part of the landscape, residents of forested areas can protect their families by creating defensible space and hardening their homes; now is the best time to start

By Haleigh Martin

May is National Wildfire Awareness Month — an annual pre-fire season reminder to take a closer look at your property or home from a wildfire preparedness lens. It might not feel like fire season yet, but as we inch closer to dry summertime, now is the best time to start preparing. Wildfire has become a major topic of discussion and concern for local communities as well as land managers and politicians.

In this month’s KS Wild Side article, we are highlighting community fire preparedness, recent research on the changing characteristics of  wildfires, massive federal investments in wildfire prevention and suppression, and new developments in fire-based management of local national forests. 

Fire as a necessary part of this landscape

For millennia, wildfires have shaped the forests of the Western United States. Forests in the Klamath-Siskiyou region are “fire-adapted.” Both lightning-sparked and fires by Indigenous peoples to maintain forests regularly burned through this landscape prior to European colonization. Historic fire severity varied, but fires often cleared smaller trees and underbrush while maintaining older, larger trees. Burn patterns created a variety of habitats and structure within a forest, contributing to a high level of biological diversity.

The benefits of wildfire include recycling nutrients, increasing the abundance and vigor of fire-adapted plants and creating habitat for wildlife. The region’s forests, plants, and wildlife thrive with fire and depend on it for overall health. Today, the West is experiencing warmer summer temperatures, frequent droughts and residential development into forest land. These factors create a greater risk of wildfires leading to serious impacts on our communities. Throughout the region, communities are learning how to better adapt and live with more frequent wildfires.

Living with fire: Get prepared now

The best time to get wildfire prepared is before a fire. As our small community learned in 2020 during the Almeda Fire, preparing during a fire is far too late. Even small actions can have a big impact on fire outcomes for your home, your family and your community. There are a number of easy ways you can get your home wildfire-prepared this spring.

A great, no-cost way to begin preparing your home for wildfire is by creating defensible space, which is a buffer around your home to slow or stop the spread of wildfire and protect your home from catching fire.

Here are some easy ways to create defensible space around your home

1. Regularly clean your roof, gutters, decks, and around the base of walls and fences to avoid accumulation of leaves, needles, and other highly flammable materials. 
2. Ensure all combustible materials are removed from underneath, on top of or within 5 feet of a deck. 
3. Remove vegetation or other combustible materials located within 5 feet of windows and glass doors. 
4. Replace wood mulch products within 5 feet of all structures with noncombustible products such as dirt, stone, or gravel. 
5. Maintain Zone 1 by removing all dead or dying grass, plants, shrubs, trees, branches, leaves, weeds and pine needles within 30 feet of all structures.
6. Maintain Zone 2 by mowing grass to 4 inches and by removing low branches from trees and shrubs within 100 feet of all structures.

Hardening your home means using construction materials that can help your existing home withstand flying embers, which can result in your house catching fire. Embers will seek out any opening or weak spot in your home’s construction to get inside. While some of this work can be done on your own, you may need to hire professional help.

10 low-cost ways to harden your home 

1. Install noncombustible metal covers to prevent accumulation of leaves and debris in your home’s gutters.  
2. Cover your chimney, stove pipe and all attic, roof and other vent openings with noncombustible, corrosion-resistant metal mesh screens, with 3/8-inch to 1/2-inch openings. 
3. Have multiple garden hoses that are long enough to reach all areas of your home and other  structures on your property. If you have a pool or well, consider getting a mobile water pump.  
4. Caulk and plug gaps greater than 1/16-inch around exposed rafters and blocking to prevent ember intrusion. 
5. Inspect siding for dry rot, gaps, cracks and warping. Caulk or plug gaps greater than 1/16-inch in siding and replace any damaged boards, including those with dry rot.
6. Install weather stripping to close gaps greater than 1/16-inch in all doors and windows (don’t forget the garage) to prevent ember intrusion. 

You may need to hire a professional to help with these home improvements: 

7. When it is time to replace your roof, replace it with fire-resistant composite, metal or tile roofing materials.  
8. When you replace your roof, ask the roofer to block the space between your roof and  exterior walls (eaves) by installing an eave and/or soffit closure, a piece of metal that  prevents ember intrusion.  
9. When replacing windows, use multipaned windows with at least one pane of tempered glass.  
10. When it’s time to replace your siding or deck, use noncombustible, ignition-resistant materials.

Emergency preparation is another critical piece to wildfire preparedness. It is important to prepare yourself for the possibility of having to evacuate in the case of an emergency.

Here are some steps that should be completed and familiar to all members of your household

1. Create an evacuation plan
2. Have a ‘go bag’ packed
3. Sign up for emergency alert notifications
4. Mitigate the financial impacts of wildfire

For checklists to outline these steps in further detail and links to emergency alert notifications, please visit the Forest & Fire Toolkit available here.

While there are many considerations for how you prepare your home and property for wildfire depending on your location, your constraints and the landscape that you live on, the important thing is that the actions you take now will help reduce the chance of damage and keep you and your loved ones safe in the event that a wildfire may threaten your home. 

Please check out our Forest & Fire Toolkit for more tips, history, checklists, and resources to prepare you and your friends and family for wildfire. This is a FREE resource created by KS Wild and partners for our community to rely on for all things fire preparedness. Click here to download your own copy of the Forest & Fire Toolkit and share it with a friend!

KS Wild Side appears every month and features a staff member from KS Wild, a regional conservation organization based in Ashland. Haleigh Martin works as the communications manager for KS Wild. For more information go to kswild.org.