Protecting Your Home and Family From Wildfires With Defensible Space

If a fire breaks out and spreads in the direction of your home or business, would you know what you need to do? You'll need to act quickly to get yourself, your family or your co-workers to safety. Make a plan for evacuation in advance and have a bag of must-have supplies ready to go. Encourage your employees to have a bag packed and ready at their homes, as well.

It's also a good idea to sign up for emergency alerts in your area, so you'll get a notification the minute there's an evacuation order or emergency announcement. 

Have a Wildfire Evacuation Plan

If a fire is heading toward your home or business, you need to know how to get away from it safely. Usually, that means traveling downhill, toward a low-lying area, away from the fire. Create an evacuation route, tracing it over a physical map. You can also print out a map and directions from an online map service. For an office or business, print out a map of the building with evacuation routes traced on it. Encourage employees to take the stairs, rather than the elevators, when evacuating for a wildfire.

Have two routes planned away from your home or business in case one is blocked or there's heavy traffic. Make sure everyone is familiar with the routes before a fire occurs. You might want to hold drills every year before fire season begins, during which you practice evacuation. 

If you have to evacuate your home, take only one car to help keep traffic on the way out to a minimum. If members of your household aren't at home when the evacuation order comes through, make sure you have a plan for making contact with each other or a safe meeting point picked out. Also, choose a relative or friend who lives in a different state to be your outside contact. When evacuating, contact this person to keep them up-to-date on your situation.

Have a "Go Bag" Ready

Depending on the severity of a fire, you might need to leave your home or business at a moment's notice. You might not have time to pack up the things you need, which is why it's smart to have a bag of supplies at the ready. When the evacuation order comes in, you and your family members can grab the bags and head out. Encourage your company's employees to pack go bags at their homes, too.

Here's what to pack in your bag:

• Masks to protect against smoke inhalation
• Changes of clothing
• Copies of important documents
• Extra charger and extra batteries
• First-aid kit 
• Three gallons of water per household member
• Non-perishable food for up to three days, including pet food
• Flashlight
• Medications, glasses and other medical supplies
• Radio and extra batteries
• Hand sanitizer and other sanitation supplies
• Maps with evacuation routes

Keep your go bags in an easily accessible area, such as your garage or the closet by your front door. Since some of the items might be heavy, consider using a wheeled suitcase or container.

Along with having a plan to keep yourself and your loved ones safe in the event of a wildfire, it's also important to do what you can to protect your home. The first step is to understand what the home ignition zone is.

The home ignition zone extends up to 200 feet away from your home's foundation. It's the area that has the biggest risk of combustion. How you design and lay out the home ignition zone plays a considerable role in how likely your home is to survive a wildfire. Businesses also need to pay attention to this ignition zone around their buildings. 

The ignition zone divides into three subareas:

• The immediate zone: The immediate zone stretches up to 5 feet away from the home or business. It's the area that's most vulnerable to embers.
• The intermediate zone: The intermediate zone stretches between 5 and 30 feet away from the structure. The design and materials found in this area can help to slow down a fire and protect the structure of your house or business.
• The extended zone: The extended zone is 30 to 200 feet from the building. The design of this area can help to slow down or disrupt a fire, keeping it out of the structure's path.

Things you can do to improve the ignition zone include removing dead leaves and other combustible materials from the roof, keeping your roof in good condition and keeping flammable materials well away from your house or building.

Wildfires take several forms, each of which spreads in different ways. The location of a wildfire also determines how difficult it is to contain. The three types of fires are:

• Ground: Ground fires burn through the material beneath the surface, such as peat and tree roots. The fire is often tricky to contain, since it is below the surface. A ground fire can burn for months before spreading a considerable distance. In some cases, a ground fire can turn into a surface fire once the subterranean material is burnt up.
• Surface: Surface fires burn through materials on the ground, such as sticks and leaf litter. In many cases, a surface fire spreads slowly, but there are factors that can speed up its spread, such as downward slopes and high winds.
• Crown: Crown fires are located high in the trees. They move through the treetops or tree canopy, and they spread much quicker than surface or ground fires thanks to windy conditions high in the trees. Crown fires can be among the most intense types of wildfires.

The materials a building is made from and the design of the area surrounding the structure greatly influence how likely it is to survive a wildfire. Home hardening is a wildfire home defense process that involves using fire-resistant building materials. Metal, clay and tile are examples of flame-resistant roof materials, and stucco is a fire-resistant wall material. You can protect a business structure in a wildfire-prone area with defensible space, too.

In the ignition zone, you can create defensible space to protect your property from fire and slow down or disrupt the path of wildfires. How you create defensible space depends in large part on the area of the ignition zone you're working in:

In addition to creating a defensible space around your home or business, hardening your home or business helps reduce the risk of damage from wildfires. Several things can cause a fire to reach your building. Burning embers can travel from a fire up to a mile away, the flames from a fire can reach your building, or the heat from burning plants and materials can cause a non-fire-resistant structure to combust. 

Focus on hardening the following areas of your home or office:

• Roof: Roofs made from shingles or wood are very susceptible to fire damage, as are roofs with a considerable amount of debris on their surface. Removing debris, such as leaves and twigs, and replacing flammable materials with flame-resistant ones such as metal, clay or tile will help protect your roof.
• Vents: Embers can enter your home or business through the vents. Covering the vents with metal mesh with 1/8-inch or 1/16-inch openings can help to keep embers out. Use metal, as other materials, such as fiberglass, can melt easily.
• Windows: Embers and flames can get into a building when windows break from heat pressure. Installing double-paned windows, with at least one side covered in tempered glass, will help to reduce damage. You might also consider designing your home or office so there are smaller or fewer windows on the sides that are near vegetation. Install screens on windows that open, and remember to keep the windows closed when there is a threat of fire.
• Walls: Wood siding and shingles can catch fire if they come into contact with embers or flames. If your building is in an area that's prone to wildfires, choose wall materials that are flame-resistant, such as brick, stucco or specially treated wood. Commercial buildings should be made from concrete or brick.
• Decks: If there's a deck attached to your home or business or within 10 feet of the structure, it should be made from flame-resistant materials, such as bricks or concrete. Keep all combustible and flammable materials off the deck, too, such as propane tanks. 

Pay attention to the materials used for any outdoor signage associated with your company. Signage should be made from non-combustible materials, such as metal or concrete.

Whether you live or work in an area prone to wildfires or not, it's a smart idea to keep combustible materials as far from a structure as possible. Consider relocating the following:

• Grills and propane tanks: Grills and propane tanks should be stored at least 15 feet from your home or business. To reduce the risk of fire spreading if a grill or tank combusts, keep the area surrounding the grill clear of any materials.
• Firewood: If you use firewood for an outdoor fire pit or wood-burning stove indoors, store the wood outside the home ignition zone, at least 100 feet from the house. If possible, stack the wood uphill.
• Recycling and garbage: Garbage and recycling, particularly paper materials, can catch fire easily. Keep your recycling bins and trash cans outside of the immediate zone to reduce the risk of fire damage to your building. 
• Boats and other motor vehicles: A boat motor or the motor of another vehicle can combust if exposed to heat and flames. Store any motorized vehicles outside the ignition zone.
• Children's play equipment: If your children have a swingset or if there is play equipment made from flammable materials on-site, position the equipment so it's at least 10 feet away from other flammable materials inside the zone, such as trees or wooden furniture.

While there are no truly fireproof plants, there are some varieties that are better able to resist flames than others. Remove woody plants from the ignition zone around the building and replace them with fire-resistant varieties that have a high moisture content and low resin or sap content.

Often, plants that are native to your area are the ones best-suited to protecting a structure from wildfires. Plant species that thrive in fire-prone areas are evolved to resist or slow down the spread of flames. Nonnative or invasive species, which aren't adapted to fire-prone areas, can speed up the spread of fire or make conditions worse.

You don't have to completely eliminate trees and woody shrubs from your landscaping. Instead, choose them carefully and space them appropriately. Hardwood trees are less flammable than most softwood species. If possible, plant maples, cherry and poplar trees rather than pines or other evergreens. Allow enough space between the plantings, at least 10 feet for any trees within the intermediate zone and at least 6 feet for trees in the extended zone.

The right equipment can help you design your defensible space and maintain it. Branch cutters let you keep trees and shrubs properly pruned and trimmed, while weed whackers and lawnmowers keep vegetation under control. A wheelbarrow lets you easily transport pruned branches and discarded vegetation to the area outside of the ignition zone. Basic gardening equipment, such as shovels, hoes and rakes, lets you keep your landscaping relatively tidy, minimizing the risk of damage due to wildfires.

In some instances, you might need heavy-duty equipment to create a defensible space around a building. For example, if you need to remove trees or shrubs, a Cat^® mini excavator allows you to easily dig up the root mass. The excavator can make quick work of what would otherwise be an arduous and challenging job.

Certain equipment attachments can make landscaping tasks go more smoothly:

• Mulchers: Mulchers can clear brush and vegetation. The attachments break up vegetation so it decomposes more quickly, reducing the risk of a surface fire spreading. 
• Brushcutters: Similarly to mulchers, brushcutters clear away excess vegetation, reducing the amount of flammable material in the area around your home.
• Stump grinders: Digging up a tree or bush is just part of the process of creating a defensible space. You also need to remove the stump effectively. A stump grinder can be ideal in situations when you have multiple stumps to remove.

Depending on the location of your home or business, you might need to use a dozer to create an elevated area. For example, if you have a deck on your house, you'll want to create a defensible space downslope from it to keep flames from reaching the underside of the deck.

Equipment can help protect a structure from wildfire damage, but it can also increase the risk of fire if it's not used correctly. For example, motorized equipment can create sparks that could start fires. Remember the following when using any machines to landscape your property:

• Mow in the early morning on calm days. 
• Keep your lawn and yard free of stones and twigs as much as possible. Stones striking a mower's blades can create sparks.
• Make sure you have the proper permits for any equipment you use.
• Have a fire extinguisher handy.
• Avoid using equipment on dry days or in very dry conditions.

You've prepared your home and business for wildfires and have set up a defensible space around them. When the time comes to evacuate, you can leave quickly without having to worry about how your property will fare.

Here's what to do if you think you'll need to evacuate soon:

• Gather up your pets and their carriers and confine them to a room near the exit.
• Position your car so it's pointing in the direction of your evacuation route. If you have a garage, back your vehicle into the garage so you can load it easily and pull out quickly.
• Close windows and doors to keep smoke and embers out. 
• Put your go bag by the door or in the trunk of your car.
• Put your evacuation routes in the car.

If you need to evacuate your business during the workday, send out an alert to everyone in the building over a PA system or through a group text message.

The minute you get word to evacuate, it's time to hit the road. It's possible that local authorities won't be going door to door to warn people to leave, so it's smart to be ready to go at the first sign that a wildfire is approaching. Keep your radio or the local news station turned on and keep an eye and nose out for signs of smoke. 

Remember the six "P's" as you head out the door:

• Papers and passports
• Pets and people
• Prescriptions
• Personal devices and computers
• Plastic — i.e., credit or debit cards
• Pictures and photos

As you travel along your evacuation route, keep the car radio on and pay attention to any activity on the road. Keep the windows closed to prevent smoke from getting in. If the fire changes direction, you might need to alter your route. Wait until you have the all-clear from the authorities before you return home after the fire. When you do return home, inspect your property carefully for signs of embers, which could spark a fire.

For over 95 years, we've been putting safety first. Our equipment and attachments can help you prepare and protect your home and business from the threat of wildfires. See more of our resources and tips for staying safe during disasters.