Tom McMackin
Spring is here! Time to get busy! Find the list you created from your earlier 360° Winter Walk-Around survey of Firewise concept tasks you identified to protect your home with surrounding defensible spaces. Use the last week of May 2021 as the end date of a working schedule for your Spring Firewise preparations of house, home and outbuilding or animal shelters on your property. Looking over the list, you can find tasks that can be worked in together to be more effective with your time and efforts.
If you missed the Winter Walk-Around, start a quick survey at the structure and foundation. Expanding outward from that point, tasks can be identified and scheduled using the same expanding of defensible zones on your property!
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Considering how fire could attack your property is a key element. The two primary ways a wildfire will threaten your home are fire brands (embers) and fire movement along the ground to structures. Heat and those billowing columns of smoke lift burning material into the air. Once aloft, those bits of fire and heat can be carried alive and dropped miles away on new fuels. This creates potential for spot fires at those drop points, which can then turn your roof and house into an extended fuel source to carry the fire of origin along on its merry way. The Eagle Creek fire in Oregon delivered burning material across the Columbia River into forested areas in Washington.
This video link talks about these two ignition sources and how you can do things to protect your property: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL_syp1ZScM (13:19)
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Listed below are five sets of 3 concepts relevant to fire, particularly wildland fire. Elements that can be mitigated using Firewise techniques are highlighted with bold type. Elements we can have some effect on are in italic type. Things that are in Nature’s realm and beyond our control are left in plain typeface.
3 COMPONENTS of FIRE needed – fuels / heat / oxygen
Fuels can be managed using Firewise principles. Heat can be managed by creating space to keep a thing that could burn distanced from other combustible things or a green lawn or watered vegetation as a cooling band
3 WAYS FIRE is TRANSFERRED – conduction / convection / radiation
Breaking the domino chain of items (fuses) that would carry fire from one to another (wood fence attached to the house / grass to shrubs planted next to the house. 30’ separation of combustible items allows for cooling heated air and (radiating) heat waves.
3 ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS of WILDFIRES – weather / terrain / fuels
Firewise principles address fuel potentials. Planning the siting of new construction by considering how fire might move across the landscape can reduce the impact of a future fire event.
3 FIREWISE ZONES [defensible spaces]
Defensible spaces: Each structure and 5’ out from the foundation / outward to 30’ / continuing out 100’(+). Start from your structure survey and plan tasks from 0’ to 100’(+)!
3 EVACUATION LEVELS of WILDFIRES – 1 / 2 / 3
Level 1 ALERT: Get Ready! / Level 2 WARNING/NOTICE: Get Set! / Level 3 REQUEST/ORDER: Go!!!
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Since we can be certain that a wildfire could… will happen here on High Prairie or come to us from some other point of origin, as happened in western Oregon last year, here are a couple of resources to help you get thinking. The Marin County, CA site has a broad range of excellent information and resource links to get your preparations started. Being prepared when a wildfire or other emergency situation might impact our community and the safety of you and your family is crucial!
https://www.firesafemarin.org/evacuation/guide
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd3852749.pdf
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As you reach the burn pile phase on your to do list, please remember:
Only natural materials [no treated lumber or other man-made items] can be burned in an area 10’ X 10’.
The pile should not exceed 4’ in depth, and a water source and hand tools need to be close at hand.
Our ‘Burn Ban’ generally begins on June 1st, but may be adjusted to environmental conditions.
A burn permit is not required. The burning window is in daylight from dawn to dusk.
If something happens that your pile begins to take on a mind of its own and begins to spread ~ call 911!
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If you have any questions or desire Firewise or High Prairie Fire information or have other comments or requests, please feel free to contact me by email at mcmackint@gmail.com or a call to 206-234-4141.