Wildfireproofing the Permies way.

Having to deal with the risk of wildfires for the first time this year is quite energy intensive.
I still want to grow vines up the walls, but clear them yearly so no deadwood build up can set ablaze the rafters and roof in that way. It will keep the vines lower as well having to start anew. So i am asking people which vines would flourish under such a regime. And which ones do not mind the heat and drought without catching fire..

Another thing is the build up of dried plants at the wall level. Should i grow plants, should i just gravel it over... Quite borring. Or should i start a rock garden there? What are people's experiences with that. I know government regulations ask me to gravel and cement all around the house  but i couldn't imagine anything worse to do to the place, so what are the options? Am i maybe thinking in completely the wrong direction?

I still want to keep woody debris and compost that away from the house, how do people do that in a quick way.

Maybe there is already a lot of information out there to find in websites and so on.

Not really an answer but another thought: how can you build the 5ft fire defense zone such that it can be neglected?  It would be disappointing if your children inherit your house and it burns down because nobody kept up with your annual trimming regime.

The most defensible approach is just to have a house that cannot burn. Build entirely from rocks and dirt, at least on the outside.

Surely the second most sensible defensive approach is to use that area to store things that dont burn but dont need to be roofed. Im not sure i have enough such things to surround a house. Its a shame the solar panels cant be put around the house in such a way as to shade the 5ft zone permanently.

Wildfire protection thinking makes the earth berm people look really good. Solid earth seems to be one of the few ways

I think keeping the grass short and keeping the log-pile under cover are the two most important things.

The fire we had here a couple of years ago was started by someone half a mile away cutting metal outdoors which sent sparks onto dried grass. The resulting fire reached his log pile, which caught fire and then went into overburn. We first saw it before the overburn stage and my other half went to investigate, my neighbour showed up on the doorstep to warn us, and I went to fetch the hose pipe to start damping the area around the house. But less than a minute later the overburn had started and sent burning bits of wood right up into the air, which were caught by the strong winds that were unfortunately blowing in our direction, and fires broke out in a line from the source all the way to just past our place. One landed on the tractor, which was lost. One landed in the back of the truck, which they managed to put out. One landed right behind the truck, which they also managed to put out. I never managed to get the hose pipe to the front of the house as I had to stop to put out a fire that one of the falling logs had started in the garden. Unfortunately by saving the garden in front of the house I'd failed to notice the burning log that had landed next to the new roof sheets behind the house, which were lost. If one had landed on the house, which was roofless at the time, that would have been lost too.

200 hectares burned. On the same day several miles away 400 hectares were lost to a fire caused by another immigrant taking chances using machinery outside during August. That is the real danger - people who don't understand the risks doing things they've always done and not understanding how dangerous it is.

If I had to write a list of Things to Do it might look something like this...

Keep the grass very short.
All firewood to be kept under cover.
Have a good water supply and hosepipe with sprinkler available.
No using any machinery that might cause sparks outside during dry weather in fire season.
Keep a bug out bag packed
Keep your exit route very clear
Keep your phone charged and near you at all times.
Be on very good terms with your neighbours and encourage them to take basic precautions too.
If anyone shows up at your property smoking a cigarette, throw a bucket of water over them and give them a piece of your mind.

As for what to grow where, and how to prune it, I try to find my own balance, weighing risk against what I want out of life. The official regulations here are quite strict but almost never followed to the letter.

But I think mostly just don't freak out. Do the obvious things, bear the risks in mind when you make decisions, but don't let fear rule your life.

I am blessed to live in an area where I have not had to deal with forest fires. So I do not have any first hand experience, but from watching and reading, I think the current suggestions are on track.

Make sure your house is built from stuff that doesn't burn.

Make sure all dead wood is removed from a very large circle around your house.

Increase the amount of water in the landscape and in the soil will help over time. This one is not a quick fix, but the more green and moist an area is... the harder those plants will be to burn.

We keep about 10 ft around the house clear and covered with pea size gravel.

There are no trees in this area and the only trees are about 20 ft from the house, one on the front patio and two away from the back patio.

Grass is cut low.

Trash is hauled away.  We are in a county that always has a burn ban so we never burn.

We have an exit plan.

Hi Hugo, you live in Burgundy, a vine and wine county.  Can some knowledgeable neighbor or local farmer help you with the choice and maintenance of vines?

Burra:  Great information, thank you.  Sorry to hear about your fire last year, must have been scary.  It is the same here, most fires are started by discarded cigarettes butts, machinery, and in a few instances, arson  Incidentally, any suggestions about what to put in your grab bag?

Reading this, I see how incredibly vulnerable we are. House made of logs. Wood pile very nearly touching the house. I grow runner beans on the catio and leave their husks year to year.

There's talk above about the five feet adjacent to the house. I wonder if it wouldn't be more safe to de-emphasize that area but create a 20' wide swathe of fire-resistant space farther out. (This only applies to those of us on acreage.)

Olga Booker wrote: any suggestions about what to put in your grab bag?

Hi Olga - Check out this emergency bag thread for suggestions for items to have ready to grab and go!

- Daniel Andy, i am way too addicted to growing plants to let any concern about what future generations neglect might cause hold me back in the now. And i hope to maybe live another twenty. The house is made of stone and lime sand, it's the roof construction and inside that are vulnerable. Not realistic to change that because it will cost a lot of money in a faltering economy, that is a problem.
- Burra Maluca, that sounds like it could easily happen here.. But not with a neighbors burn pile, but with an amending 7 miles long forest that might get into overdrive burning. The reason that i want to make the front of the house a fireproof zone, but not gardenless is because like happened to you. One cannot be at two sides of the house! I'm alone most of the times. And running a hose around will just get it entangled. that's why i have one laying at every side.
Thank you for the down to earth advice valuable for at this moment. I am however in this topic i started trying to look forward and live in a way which can satisfy my need for greenery and nature, beautifying my surroundings is something i want to keep doing as much as possible. So i'm looking for ways to get the front of the house reasonable fire proof, maybe by rock gardening so i can concentrate on the back garden to be there with my hose and buckets of sand and wetted blanket to immediately get to any started fire in case of ember rain.
- Matt McSpaden. I hear what you say. Yes will do.
- Anne Miller. Wow, your place must be very big. I see the logic, but couldn't abide by these recommendations. I have to get greener solutions.
- Olga I live in a non wine area. Most people here know nothing out of the ordinary. They want to be just like the next guy and do like the next guy. If you do outstanding things they expect you to be punished for it by the universe. I'm an alien to them caring for green stuff they do not know the name of or care for it's function. They keep telling me to cut everything down and that i do not need it. Good job they're not a very motivated people or this would be a desert a long time gone.
- Christopher Weeks. Yes i'm part of GoingToSeed as well and one member called out in despair that people must be aware that drying up can happen a lot faster than people think. It's a sneaky process. We've had two summers in which rain was a regular phenomenon and the two before that were very dry. There is like a trend and suddenly you find yourself in a bad situation. If you can manage preparing by making a wood shelter away from the house and filling that up with new wood would be a good long term plan i guess.
- Nancy i have put some bags with stuff in the van after a story where police were running late in the night banging on peoples doors and didn't let a lady go back in the house to get that bag. She was send off in pyjamas and then her house and bag burned. She only had pyjamas left.

Hugo said, " Anne Miller. Wow, your place must be very big. I see the logic, but couldn't abide by these recommendations. I have to get greener solutions

I have 40 acres of live oak, oak, and juniper (cedar) forest that is littered with prickly pear.

Texas has wildfires every year.   Lightning is the number one cause, I believe.

For Greener solutions:

Keep trees trimmed away from houses and buildings.

Green solutions involve clearing combustible mulch and dead brush from a 5 foot zone around structures.

Also planting drought tolerant native plants.  

Take advantage of building greenbelts as natural firebreaks and keep these irrigated on a regular basis.

Maybe some of these will work for you.

This thread hits home, as we have been busy all spring and summer, working to fire-proof our home and the surrounding property.

We had almost no moisture in Colorado over the winter.  The fire season did not wait for summer: before winter was over, we rushed to a friend's home to help evacuate horses that were threatened by an approaching fire. The fire started inside a garbage truck. Tthe driver dumped his load onto a gravel patch alongside the road, to avoid losing his truck. Unfortunately, high winds quickly drove the fire into the nearby grasslands.

As we sped to our friend's property pulling an empty horsetrailer, we passed the fire on the way, and watched an airplane flying low, dumping water on the raging grass fire, which was being driven across the landscape by fierce winds.  Happily, fire crews extinguished the fire before it reached our friend's property.

Since that experience, we have been working to prevent a similar grass fire from reaching our home. Our property consists of a scattered grove of 150 trees, surrounded by many acres of grassland.  Our home, as well as a barn and shop sit in the center, surrounded by the pine trees. While there is heavy forest nearby, it is likely that a grass fire is the primary threat to our property.

The trees mostly sit back from the house.  Only a couple stand within thirty feet. We are not inclined to cut down the trees, but we've been working to prevent a grass fire from climbing into the trees.  We've removed the lower tree branches, from all the trees, so that most of the branches are at least five feet above the ground. We've also raked up the thick layer of pine needles and pine cones that have collected on the ground through the years.

Since most of us are gardeners on this site, you will be glad to know that the pine needles have been repurposed as garden pathways, where they will be watered frequently, reducing the likelihood of catching fire.  The pine cones have been added to our compost piles, where their acid content will be a welcome addition. Our compost, consisting of horse manure and pine shavings is slightly basic, and has caused stunting in some acid-loving garden plants.

We've removed several shrubs that were close to the house, and we will landscape the areas near the house with rock gardens, planted with columbine and similar small flowering plants that will not create much fire hazard.  Much of the rock gardens will consist of fossilized wood, which is abundant in our horse pastures.  Thankfully our home has brick-veneer on the lower portions of the exterior walls, which will reduce the chances of the walls catching fire.

We are fortunate that our existing driveways create a natural fire line around three sides of our buildings.  I've been mowing a wide path in the grass on the remaining side, hoping to prevent, or at least slow down, any grass fire that approaches us.  I've continued that idea out into our pastures, mowing several concentric rings around our property to slow an approaching fire.

Here's hoping that everyone here will prepare their homes, and never have our preparations tested!

When we lived in fire-prone California, we ran a few sheep in any part of the property that was not kept irrigated, especially in the spring when grass etc. grow vigorously.  Additional grass from a further distance would be scythed and piled for hay, kept in covered piles far away from the buildings. In retrospect this hay was probably the biggest danger, since a fire could loft it up and drop it out, smoldering, over the entire site.  Most homes are actually lost to ember fallout, sometimes miles in front of an advancing fire line.   I was learning to make barrel silage the last couple of years...this may have been a better way to have off-season feed for the sheep.  Anyway they kept all the grass munched down very short, and made quick work of any garden stuff I took them.  
    I learned early on to put most organic matter under and into the soil, not on top of it as mulch.  Most mulch is just a fire hazard, and it doesn't do much to conserve moisture through a six-month drought....unless maybe it was woodchips two or three feet deep, which I didn't often have.
     We had sprinklers permanently on the roof, with designated hoses to the well pump.  Generator that could run this pump....since power outages often happen in wildfires.  In retrospect these water lines should have been copper pipe or something fireproof like that, but $.
     I spent a lot of time raking, picking up sticks, and scything weeds along the fences and roadside.  Much more than in a wetter climate.  None of the stuff went to waste....it went either to sheep, chickens, or composts and eventually all ended up in the gardens....dug in.
     Another observation I made which I never got a chance to put into practice, though I envisioned it for the worst fire sector...the roadside....was a hedgerow of succulents.  I once saw a homestead where a thick hedgerow of agave and tall prickly pear stopped a windblown grass fire dead....those plants hold water and all that water has to boil before it will burn.
     It is quite difficult for people native to moist climates to believe how easily it is to spark a fire when everything is tinder dry.  A trailer dragging a chain.  A vehicle with a hot muffler parked in the grass.  A chainsaw hitting a nail or a rock or again that hot muffler in the grass.  A bottle or a jar sitting out in the sun.  Hitting a rock with a shovel.  And, oh yeah, any pile of moist organic matter over five feet high or so.  Mowing grass short is often recommended....and it's a good way to spark one if the grass is already dry (I  put weedeater string in my mower in place of the blade every summer).

Hugo Morvan wrote:Having to deal with the risk of wildfires for the first time this year is quite energy intensive.
I still want to grow vines up the walls, but clear them yearly so no deadwood build up can set ablaze the rafters and roof in that way. It will keep the vines lower as well having to start anew. So i am asking people which vines would flourish under such a regime. And which ones do not mind the heat and drought without catching fire..

Another thing is the build up of dried plants at the wall level. Should i grow plants, should i just gravel it over... Quite borring. Or should i start a rock garden there? What are people's experiences with that. I know government regulations ask me to gravel and cement all around the house  but i couldn't imagine anything worse to do to the place, so what are the options? Am i maybe thinking in completely the wrong direction?

I still want to keep woody debris and compost that away from the house, how do people do that in a quick way.

Maybe there is already a lot of information out there to find in websites and so on.

Wildfire risk really changes the way landscaping is approached. Vines on the walls are still appealing, but the question is which varieties can handle yearly pruning, heat, drought, and lower fire risk.

The area right around the house is another challenge. Gravel and concrete may be practical, but a rock garden or carefully selected low-growing plants could offer a better balance between safety and keeping the space natural.

Curious to hear what has worked for others, especially when it comes to managing woody debris and compost away from the house in a practical way. Real experiences are always valuable.

Olga Booker wrote:Hi Hugo, you live in Burgundy, a vine and wine county.  Can some knowledgeable neighbor or local farmer help you with the choice and maintenance of vines?

Burra:  Great information, thank you.  Sorry to hear about your fire last year, must have been scary.  It is the same here, most fires are started by discarded cigarettes butts, machinery, and in a few instances, arson  Incidentally, any suggestions about what to put in your grab bag?

Hi Olga, I happened to have my emergency bag contents list handy, here it is:

(all fits into one medium hiking backpack):

**Main Bag**

* Work Gloves

* Small crowbar/Wrench (wrench is for turning off the gas to my apartment)

* 150ft parachute cord 1/8th in

* x3 carabiners

* Stack of particulate filter n95 masks

* Roll of duct tape

* 1-2 person hiking first aid kit

* Toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, sunscreen, floss)

* 3L water

* Separate toilet paper and matches

* Flashlight

* Laser pointer

* whistle

* Spare batteries for flashlight

* waterproof matches

* Head anti-bug netting

* Local area maps x3 (local cities and nearby country)

* Compass/magnifying glass

* Notepad

* Sharpie

* Mechanical Pencil

* Thermal blanket

* 8 Meals (would be better if I could fit more)

* Can-opener

* Camping towel

* Chemical glowsticks

* Sewing kit

* Earplugs

**Camping SubBag (already have this for camping, get a smaller bit of it if you dont camp)**

* x2 Camping pots (one is fine, got 2 in a camp stove kit that nest)

* Camp stove

* Fuel Cannister for stove

* Collapsable Cup

* Swiss army style knife

* Chopsticks

* x3 Resealable airtight bags

* Food hanging bag (drysack)

* Bluebags for toilet

* Medium size camp towel

* Water purifier

**DayHike SubBag (Already used for hiking, might as well store it together)**

* Headlamp

* Day toilet kit (TP, matches)

* Lighter

* Sunscreen

* Photocopy of passport

* Poncho

Alan Booker and I cover wildfires in a podcast

https://permies.com/wiki/148652/Podcast-Wildfires-Part

This might help a bit.

https://www.epicgardening.com/firewise-plants/

Ted and Cindy, welcome to the forum!

Ted, sorry to here of your experiences in Colorado.

Cindy, What part of the country do you live?  Are these suggestions from personal experience?

Nancy and Daniel:

Thank you for the info on the grab and go bag!

Hugo:

Sorry to hear about where you live and the people around you.  I encountered the same  when I lived in the Pyrenees.  Unfortunately, it's the same the world over, people don't like changes or differences.  Thank you for the link about "fire wise" plants.  Very informative and useful.  Keep safe.

What Burra said

And, re plants and trees:
Sometimes a watered lawn or watered plants, trees that are not dried out, are great fire prevention. It does not have to be pea gravel or bare ground.

There are newer studies now (after lots of recent fires) that show how trees especially, are clear fire prevention, not fire starters as was previously believed. (Pines are excluded because of their high oil content).

Oaks and Mulberry are two tree families that are quite protective. Oak with their thick bark and strong wood burn very slowly (why it’s important to thoroughly extinguish if one does catch fire). Mulberry with their juicy leaves and water holding trunks and branches can save houses from being burned themselves.

There is a famous photo of a mulberry as a single barrier to a fire burning a house. Everything else is burned. https://www.facebook.com/abccanberra/posts/pfbid0nQXohmGVh3iRfF8qeBr7KemegFB4LKRyKRfYzZWX83ceeG34V9yUyJPLDdZDUZhMl

For wood-sided houses, having succulents and juicier vines like grapes and roses - maybe even kiwis? All if well watered in the high fire season would protect rather than cause burning if dead material is pruned and mulch is used to keep soil creation and soil moisture ongoing.
Same with willow. And cactus. Succulents are great fire protection, being so filled with watery gel. Green Lawn well watered is very fire preventive.
A friend of ours recently went through a terrible fire in her area and her house did not burn because of the green lawn around it and no dead material.

Otherwise I’m in agreement w Burra’s comments about covering wood piles and keeping grass short.

Thank you Tuffy and Rick for the suggestions.

- Mulberry i've been trying to get going for years to no avail but this year somebody has sent me a Florida bushy variety cutting through the post which is not ready to die as of yet and she told me she was willing  to send me a bunch  of tcuttings of the offsping of differing varieties that all taste lovely that sprung up around her garden. Maybe if one of those is less waterneedy it could be a good candidate to add to the collection of 'wildfireprrof' trees and shrubs i try to collection.

- Next time i'll be in southern Europe i'll have to see if i can get my hands on some acorns of those corky Oaks they've got growing there.

- Hops is very interesting, i have one growing that i had to take the deadwood out yesterday and i snipped off some of the green new shoots accidently. I was really taken aback how juicy the inside was. That rootsystem must be some kind of superpump to attain that level in this droughtstriken year. Most of it's foliage at the bottom however is dried up and were it not for the grapevine shading it out mostly i believe all of it's leaves would have shrivelled to dust by now. I have to check how nature's wild varieties are holding up. I've asked a friend who's growing a variety a local beer producer has dished out for people to re-hop the countryside, but that apparently has shrivelled completely.

Here are soe of my suggestions from around the garden. Stuff that i don't water that refuses to die, but flourishes. Some call it weedy or even invasive like all plants that don't need humans to survive, i just like to grow it contained so it takes all the space and i don't have to pull a lot of grass out.

- Soapwort or Saponaria officinalis, I still have to test it's flame- ability, but it stays short and can easily be removed if must be.

- Common Tansy or Tanecetum Vulgare. It does get to the waist so might be less of a candidate, but as all things in gardening, people have to locally find out what is feasable and works for them.

- Brasilian vervaine or Verbena Bonariensis. It's a perennial and doesn't mind much, a lot of butterflies visiting all summer.

- Lavander, take a drought resistant variety. As can be seen in the picture one of them is very green leafy, the other carries a lot of dead foliage

- Japanes quince is a fruitbearing drought resistant shrub that gets waste high.

Re lavender
Well I love lavender, personally, I use it for a lot of things. BUT, it’s definitely not fire resistant. It’s got a lot of oils in it - all those more fragrant plants do…
I make sure that the few lavender plants I have a well interplanted with greener juicier things.

Re mulberry:
I don’t know where you are located, but I have a friend growing White Mulberry (Morus alba), the super spreading fast growing eastern species in the high desert of So Cal.
It’s very drought tolerant, once established. It needs to get its roots down. Once that happens, I think you’ll be happy with it. An added plus of course is how great the forage is for ruminants and the fruit for us or wildlife as well. In the right (humid) climate it will spread more than some folks like.

Opuntia cactus is super fire resistant. And highly edible.

I forgot to mention:
There is a cool Australian bush fire site which ranks plants by burn resistance. I forget the name of it and don’t have the web link, sorry.
But, like the top 10-15 plants are ALL in the Atriplex genus. Common name is Saltbush. They are native to or will grow in most Mediterranean areas.

These plants are bushes/ shrubs, perennial, and have different species that will grow in seasonally marshy areas in winter with dry places in summer and are quite vigorous - plus they are *excellent* forage for ruminants.
They are in the lambs quarters family of plants (Amaranthaceae I believe).
I’ve planted many of these on perimeters especially but will put them anywhere I can. They are great for fire protection. I think it’s their salt content and their slight succulence. (Interestingly they do not salt the soils surrounding them).
They like full sun, which is one caveat.

Thank you all for the informative conversation!
And for examples of plants that are thriving even after all this heat and drought.
Here's a list of diehards at my place - green, no sign of distress;
grapes
hops
lavender
peppermint
rosa damascena
cistus
artemisia species, especially absinthium
rosemary

Re quince:
Any fruit tree in the Apple family will be fairly resistant to burning outright, because they have juicy leaves. Including quince.
If you want fruit too, I’d go for the fruiting variety (which also has flowers) rather than the flowering one.

In fact, you were talking vines, and you could espalier any of those fruiting trees on your house, or on wood fencing, as if they were vines. Would look beautiful too.

I'm skeptical of the value of well watered plants to stop a forest fire.

Grass fire maybe.

But i have seen how sopping wet wood, collected in the rain, dries out and burns when next to burning logs. My conclusion is that well watered plants will help against flying embers and grass fires, but a burning tree will turn all those watered plants to fuel around it.

Agreed Daniel that in a big fire, nothing will stop it.

But, I’ve seen for myself that well-watered plants DO stop the particular lawn, tree, and structures behind it from burning in many cases.
I think it’s a good rule to do.

Obviously if the fire and embers come from the opposite direction, it won’t help.

A colleague of mine - had her barn (w animals) and house saved while a raging, giant, infamous, fire burned everything else around her, because her plants, trees, and grass were green and watered.

There are many factors that can help or hinder a fire, obviously. And there’s much we don’t know.

But, my philosophy is do all i can, don’t plant the fire prone oily plants irresponsibly, maximize what I know, annd base my actions on knowledge, experience, what I can afford, and the rest: I can’t worry about what I can’t control.

Maximizing the protection might look like 500-1000ft of BARE ground 360° around structures. But that still might not prevent embers from landing on structures.
And is that how you’d like your house and land to be?
We don’t have enough land to make that happen and still grow things and eat.

Its expensive, and difficult in a hurry, but Covering one’s house with aluminum “foil” blanketing is a viable way to protect one’s house if embers and fire don’t get in underneath.
There needs to be time to cover the house and get away with animals and go-bags in tow.

But even if I could do all that, I’d STILL maximize my landscape fire resistance.

I've thought about (not yet tested or implemented) some sort of rapid-deploy house shield to quickly protect at least small structures in the event of a fire emergency. A curtain system with heavier nonflammable material, or even hanging metal panels potentially - the foil wrap seems iffy due to challenge of installing well to resist wind etc, and not easily reusable. But maybe fixing it to a light frame or other custom mounting system? I'm also recalling that tight, trimmed straw bales do not readily ignite, and could possibly make a quick barrier wall at least on most exposed side of structure/space.

I am trying to get my wife on board with having only succulents up near the house and on the deck. We have no gutters for fore safety, but where rain runs off the roof I dug a swale with an excavator into the bedrock the house is on. That is filled with gravel and sloped towards garden terraces or our pond. Succulents grow well in this gravel and are quite  fire resistant.

We live in North Idaho. Most people consider wildfire a "danger" up here, and while it is, I think that's somewhat the wrong perspective to have. On a long enough timeline, you have to think of wildfire as being something like a -25F winter day -- it just happens and you can't really fight it. So for the winter, you bury your pipes below frost depth and be done with it.

For fire, it's more complicated. But areas like North Idaho have always had wildfires. If you live in the wild in some regions, you should simply expect that it's going to burn at some point. Your property and home should be designed accordingly.

The best prevention of fire is... fire. If you can do controlled burns in the off season, it'll do more to remove duff and small trees than you'll ever be able to otherwise. If you burned out your property every year or two, it would help tremendously!

Now there's other things you can do to help. Eliminate ladder fuels, so no branches touching the ground. If you have a clump of trees, some living and dead, maybe thin them out beforehand. Some tree species are better in fire than others. Lodgepole Pine, for instance, requires fire for seeding. It makes for a nice firewood and nice lumber. However, it dies easily in a fire. Ponderosa Pine is terrific in a fire.

Fire burns slower through "tinder litter" than grass. Shade also helps a lot -- fire is much more active with the sun on it. So forests can actually be very safe places in a fire, depending on the tree species and terrain. Now slopes, especially steep ones, can be very dangerous. To prevent crowning (fire going from one tree top to another) you need wider spacing on slopes than you would otherwise.

I think it's good to be aware both of how hard it can be to start a fire, or for it to progress, and for how easy it can be. Conditions are key, but materials are also important. I think the 5 foot non-combustible barrier around a house is a good idea. As is keeping trees 100 feet from the house. I don't like the idea of vines in an area prone to wildfires. I would also not recommend a cedar shake roof. Steel roofs are nice unless the house catches on fire, but usually the recommended option.

Now let's say you have a vented attic. We do, and I'm not highly concerned about attic fires. It's definitely possible, but the eaves have a metal mesh on them to keep embers out. If one did get in, it's covered with Rockwool which will practically never burn. And you can't ignite dimensional lumber very easily, if an ember happens to land there.

If we had a vented attic without mesh and with boxes of old newspapers, I would be very concerned!

Keeping grass trimmed with sheep, goats, or a mower is a good idea. Shorter grass will lower flame heights, which will slow spread and is easier to fight.

I don't think that houses need to be all stone. If they are right up next to an unmanaged forest, then that would certainly help. But wood doesn't burn easily. For most wood sided houses, could you light it with a match? What about a whole match box? Probably not! Now even in construction there's lots you can do to help with fire resistance to buy you more time. Lightweight materials and trusses with gusset plates are not helpful. Bigger timber is harder to catch on fire and will maintain strength longer in a fire. Closing doors at night is the most helpful thing to slow fire spread.

Back to controlled burns. Let's say that you have a lot of Spruce. You burn your land. If the Spruce doesn't die right away, it doesn't have tap roots. If there's a lot less duff on the ground, it can be more prone to falling over in a windstorm. So something to keep in mind.

I've been writing for a while now. I'll wrap it up here. Don't be afraid of wood houses! But I wouldn't put ladder fuels around my house, either. Not all Permaculture concepts are going to be appropriate in all regions. And not every chunk of land is suitable for homes! I helped put out a fire on a mountain side home not long ago. Not a single accomodation for fire was done. There was hardly any access and it was on a steep slope. Pretty much a worst case scenario. In the end, though, it seems that their generator (right next to the house!) caught fire. But too dangerous of a place to live, in my opinion.

Hugh, something I saw once in Nevada that I would love to do against our south facing wall in is to grow squash vines up at an angle, using metal cables to attach to the eaves, but making sure that the plants do not touch all the way. A dense planting of any annual vine that stays green that you are able to keep trimmed near the top should be useful for both fire resistance and shade. However, our challenge is getting things to grow fast enough to work before wildfire season starts, since nights often drop to cooler temperature that slows down growth. Perhaps it would work if we built a stone/concrete planter box and put rocks around the plants. (I tried this with some tomato plants that were given to me two months early and they actually survived the cooler weather and have been producing well. It also ensured that we got apricots this year, and our almond tree has thrived incredibly well after being moved next to a rock wall and having rocks around the base of it.)

As to general wildfire proofing, here is our situation:
We are on a 4+-acre property in northern California with a Mediterranean climate and high risk for wildfires. The property above us is heavily wooded with lots of brush, and we do not mow the area about past 150 ft from the house, although we do try to make paths through it, and keep the dry stuff under the trees near the road down (often find discarded cigarette butts).

I recently saw a talk by local firefighters and they said in the U.S. the first five feet next to the house are responsible for 90% of fires - mostly from embers. Whoever built the 100 plus year-old house we are in put concrete up around the base of the walls at least 7 inches high, and the area near the walls was already cleared, so that helps a lot, as it's easy to keep that way. There are a couple of sections where an addition was built and the wood siding is down to the ground, so we have protected that with metal flashing.

Home hardening and fire resistant coatings:
We bought the property just after the awful Paradise fire that took 82 lives, and one of the first things we did was to add metal siding and a metal roof to everything - we were lucky enough to source half of the panels inexpensively from a brewery that had dismantled a warehouse. Being new on the property and with Covid making it difficult to socialize, we had the energy to do all that ourselves. (If you combine our current ages and average it out, it comes to 70, and we would not be able to do now what we did then). There are several very old outbuildings on the place that we covered in addition to the house. One of the outbuildings had a dirt floor, so we dug down as far as we could before we hit boulders; then got a pond liner and have a 3000 gallon water storage tank that also doubles as a cold plunge on a hot day. The water doesn't heat up because it has a loft and metal roof above it.

One other thing we did was to spray unpainted wood in all the outbuildings with a product called Timbor that has borax in it, which is fire retardant. For painted wood, and since the wood siding on the house needed to be repainted anyway, we added a product called Master Flame that also has fire retardant properties - you mix it 50-50 with your paint and you can use a paint sprayer. Lately, we have been fine tooth combing any cracks and crevices around the house and have added a steel mesh that can be scrunched up to fit in those places. We also changed the mesh size on the attic vents to prevent ember entry. We took the gutters off the front of the house because they were too dangerous to clean once the roof changed to metal. There were two big stone wall planters that started cracking once the extra winter moisture collected in them, so we removed the bushes that were in them and concreted them over (which took care of the holes the skunks were digging trying to get in under the house. One of the bushes was a geranium and it is much happier in its new location on the north side of the house.)

Keeping gutters clean is another task to keep on top off. After a windstorm took down one of the huge ponderosa pine above our house, we had the other two taken down as well and there is so much less debris to clear out. We do have metal flashing covering the wood timbers on the edges where the gutters attach, and that is another preventative.

Vegetation management:
We had 60 inches of rain over the winter and spring, with the last rainfall at the end of May, which delayed fire season this year but also created a huge abundance of grasses and tall weeds. We have an old riding mower, that my husband has to baby along and is limited to areas that are not too angled or bumpy and somewhat obstacle free. We used to have a 3-wheeled trimmer mower (Cub Scout - no blades - just thick plastic string). However, the thing took a lot of effort to push, especially along sloped terrain, so we sold it and hubby has been experimenting with taking handheld battery-operated weed whackers and trying different things to use as blades. We took leftover plastic string from the Cub Scout, and are now using it instead of the skinnier type on one of the weed whackers. The string has to be kept a bit shorter to begin with because otherwise it makes the motor work harder. On the plus side, we are not losing bits of plastic everywhere, and there is less danger of sparks when we hit a rock.
With the more high powered whacker, he tried copper wire and then some aluminum blades. They worked until you hit an unseen rock, and then you'd spend time having to straighten the blades out. The best thing he has found so far is some links of stainless steel chain. He is still fine tuning that process.

Firefighting policies and news:
One thing that changed since we moved here is how local firefighting crews respond. Any time there is a report of smoke, they head out. We have a local website owner (Yubanet) that provides details. As soon as someone in authority has verified the situation, they either call off teams or ask for more resources. Sometimes it is just smoke from someone's barbecue! We often get strong breezes here during the hot, dry weather so every minute counts. It has made a big difference in the size of the fires we are seeing locally.

Another thing that is happening is that our electric power company (PG&E) has changed their practices after having been found culpable of their equipment being the cause of some of California's very large fires. They now shut down power to selective areas when strong winds could cause their equipment to create sparks. This has made a noticeable difference. Since they became more selective, we experience a lot fewer outages. We get alerted via text when the power is out and often what the cause is and when we can expect it to come back on. Most people now have generators for backup power.

We're in a bushfire zone on the South Coast of NSW.  Our vacant block was burnt out along with neighbours who lost property and houses in 2019.  Our hemp house is under construction and fire mitigation measures are taken very seriously. Follow this link for a great deal of information;. https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/plan-and-prepare/building-on-bush-fire-prone-land

One of the first things is will I stay and fight or will I lock and leave?  As we're close to a major road and the beach (and I know what happened last time with fire fighters) I'm in the stay and fight so everything I do is based around that.

Observations from bushfires in 2003 and 2019 are:
1 - the impossible will happen
2 - town water fails in a bushfire - we're installing a diesel fire pump on our water tank and use that to pump to a header tank a coupl eof times a year so we're prepared and able to use the pump at a moments notice
3. wind carried embers are the killer - you can be surrounded by flames in seconds even if the fire front is a kilometre way
4. dont start wetting down until the last minute - it just evaporates
5. a well managed garden is an excellent fire break
6. smoke taint will ruin a vintage and break a vintners heart  

Portugal here, this is a constant worry every summer. Grape vines on walls are traditional partly for this reason, they stay green through the worst of the heat if you water them. The mandatory clearance of dead brush within 50m of buildings is what's made the biggest difference though.

paul wheaton wrote:Alan Booker and I cover wildfires in a podcast

https://permies.com/wiki/148652/Podcast-Wildfires-Part

I feel like the information in this thread is ...    well ....   i wish it was more aligned with my own philosophies ... which would take hours to share - which is why it took hours to record this pod with alan.  

Never burn brush.  All of that wood is of a thousand times greater value to improve the soil.  Really great soil holds moisture and then your growies cannot catch on fire.  

Cutting "fuel wood" and burning it just makes the soil shitty and all the growies die or get crispy in the heat.

This is just the beginning.  

Maybe somebody can get AI to make a summary of the pod?

If one is managing a border, when a weedy season comes it is also a great biomass boost so if you can catch it before it goes fully brown you just gained a ton of compost potential. Finding the simplest chopping method can suite the situation when you are against the clock and the days are warming fast. One concept is to look at where the fire threat overlaps with weedy patches. Then position the summer watering(gardens) and water features(ponds or other smaller features) between that spot (the most prominent sector zone-threats overlap  points). Like the windy and hot side where weedy seeds blow in and hit a fence or some other obstacle. One might look to manage outside the fence to chop it all and bury all of it. How it gets buried it could be as simple as in a small pit or a series of vermitrenches or in swale bottoms. Any way you can get it all plugged in before it gets hot. You will safe yourself a ton of toil if you get it before it goes brown and you would also be eliminating a sh-ton of invasive seed. As a bonus all that packed in nutrient and energy gets put back into the ground before the growing season is fully hot. Bury don't burn!

In this "Good News" article, someone in Spain is rescuing donkeys, and turning a group of them into a fire protection team. Their task is to clear fire blocks and reduce the fire load.

As Paul said above, *how* you clear underbrush can either improve or reduce the quality of your soil. How animals browse can either be an asset or a liability to the soil, but hopefully the article's Fire Brigade Donkeys are at least an improvement over nasty chemicals or diesel powered equipment.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11987460/donkey-fire-brigade-spain-wildfires/

I've asked a rosebush loving friend to find me a vine-ing variety that can and climb walls and be drought-resistant and doesn't mind being cut back on a yearly basis ( to prevent dead wood build up). She came with the variety Boursier. I might have killed my rose vine, an almost wild variety, because you're not supposed to cut them to more than a third.
I believe as a community it is important to get a portfolio together so we can counter people like my neighbors, who say we should just cut down all the trees everywhere so then nothing can catch fire. Especially if we manage to collect varieties that can easily be propagated by cuttings it could be interesting for some of us to offer people a fire resistant package of possible trees and shrubs. See it as a business opportunity, as well as every saved house is a house that doesn't have to be rebuild and keeping people in the countryside is a matter of importance.

Hugo Morvan wrote: Especially if we manage to collect varieties that can easily be propagated by cuttings it could be interesting for some of us to offer people a fire resistant package of possible trees and shrubs. See it as a business opportunity, as well as every saved house is a house that doesn't have to be rebuild and keeping people in the countryside is a matter of importance.

This is super interesting, Hugo! I think it's very much worth while to gather ideas and information on how to fire-proof our homesteads the permie-way, plus selling plants that thrive in this new, arriving ecosystem, catching water and slowing down any fires.

My two things for the portfolio are; grazing animals (I have three little sheep for my 2000m2 grassland) to keep the wild grasses and underbrush short. and the  ponds  I mentioned earlier for catching rain water.
But it would be interesting to gather a list of plants that are drought tolerant, fire repellant and cool and moisten the landscape.
I'm now staring "at nothing" as I try to come up with plants that would fit that description, and I realize I'm looking at a fig tree. Hmm!

This winter, we worked with our county FireSafe Council to create about 2000gal of biochar while creating 3 acres of shaded fuel breaks and doing 2 permaculture design workshops tying into this work. The largest, oldest trees and shrubs (our manzanitas can be 200yrs+) were prioritized to protect while trying to leave a mosaic with as much biodiversity as possible wherever it would not be ladder fuel for an old, fire resistant tree. Doing so we hope to keep the beneficial effects of a diverse understory. These include catching dew and fog, shading soil, and stirring gentle breezes with the temperature differentials shade and vegetation induced orographic uplift creates.

During the shaded fuel break clearing, I set up our Wild Permaculture Guild’s Ring of Fire biochar kiln to char anything thinner than 3”, or about wrist sized. Our last day with the wonderful crew was a May workshop with over 30 participants. Participants learned how to make biochar, hot to do and get help with wildfire prep, and use larger woody debris for hugelkulture and watershed restoration structures. It went as well as I could have hoped.

The next week, we had a watershed restoration workshop using the larger wood. We left snags over 10” standing for habitat wherever it was not too risky for live older trees or structures. We used the largest wood for incised gully restoration structures that induce sedimentation to slow, spread and sink water.

We were able to stack many functions into the shaded fuel breaks that I think will help others do likewise for all our benefit.