Property management to reduce wildfire risks

I'm looking at purchasing a lovely 4 hectare (10 acres or 40,000m2) plot of young mixed native woodland to keep my goats on and eventually to live on. The property has a ruined house on it that was abandoned probably well over a decade ago when the area burned before. I think it has also burned once more since then as I can still see charred timbers around. It will very likely burn again at some point.

This region is prone to wildfires and with higher temperatures every year, the risk is always increasing. The property is now quite thickly wooded across most of it, with mainly young oaks, pines and a thick understory of scotch broom and bramble.

I will be putting my goats on it, but I only have six at the moment so it will take them a long time to have an impact, if any. I will be getting a few more though and hopefully pigs too.

I really like the woodland and want to keep it in as natural state as possible, but we would like to eventually move onto this property and I am concerned that the whole lot is just a tinderbox at present. I am worried about doing the house up and moving in, only for it to burn down again a few years later. And of course the safety of the animals is also a concern.

Some of the neighbours' properties are also very densely overgrown.

I especially wanted to keep the trees around the edges of the land, for privacy, however part of me thinks that the best thing might actually be to just clear a sort of 'airstrip' all around the edges to try and reduce the risk of any fires spreading from a neighbouring property?

I will also try to clear out the understory, as at the moment it's too thick to walk through in many places.

Many people in this region would just raze everything to the ground for safety since these are not fruit trees and they don't really care for nature, but I want to know if there is anything more I could do to reduce fire risk while retaining the woodland as much as possible?

As you have indicated, I would consider a firebreak ….at least to slow  the fire from being pushed by prevailing winds.   I suspect I might search a little more to get specifics on the pattern the fire spread in on previous occasions.  Having access to water may significantly help those fighting future fires.

John F Dean wrote:As you have indicated, I would consider a firebreak ….at least to slow  the fire from being pushed by prevailing winds.   I suspect I might search a little more to get specifics on the pattern the fire spread in on previous occasions.  Having access to water may significantly help those fighting future fires.

There is a well on the property (don't know where it is yet as it's all overgrown and the owner doesn't remember), but wouldn't firefighting with our own water require an extremely high-powered pump in order to be effective? I used to work at sea and we did a lot of fire fighting training. We always used big diesel generator powered pumps to blast water through those special chunky hoses. Something to consider anyway.

Much depends upon the depth and volume of the well.  Where I am, rural fire departments have pump trucks.  These can pull water from ponds and shallow wells.  I have a 26000 gal cistern that takes water from my house and barn. The cistern is designed to overflow into a large pond. But, I am also in an area that sees over 40 inches of rain each year.  

John Daley is from a much dryer area. He sometime comments on the use of holding tanks for a firefighting resource.

I live in an area that had a devastating fire come through in 2020. There were some people who ignored orders to evacuate and saved their houses with garden hoses.

The firescaping recommendations are having wide fire breaks, clearing underbrush near trees so that fires can’t climb, and having a fuel-free zone directly around the house. In extreme conditions, embers can travel significant distances on the wind, so even those may not be enough.

I didn't have time to read this book cover to cover, but in an increasingly fire-risk world (maybe - maybe we're just returning to an older risk world with more humans in the way?) I highly recommend you read this before making firm plans:

Smokescreen : debunking wildfire myths to save our forests and our climate,  author Chad T. Hanson.

Fire does much more good on the land than most people realize. I had heard that "snags" were important from permies, but Mr. Hanson puts figures and personal observation to that importance.

However, we do have more humans in the way. Some *big* takeaways from the book:

1. Fire proof your home! Build it out of stuff that doesn't burn, doesn't let embers get trapped, has a simple roof line, and that you can water well if a risk is heading your way. Underground has its point!
2. Only weather puts out forest fires - humans try but mostly don't succeed. Humans need to learn more about "redirecting" fire away from things we want to keep.
3. Areas in California that were logged and disturbed after fires, grew low, invasive weeds that were more prone to feeding the next fire, than areas that were allowed to regenerate without human intervention.  
4. Don't plant mono-cultures... Worldwide, Humans aren't "growing forests", they're growing mono-cultures that are just as bad for the ecosystem as any other mono-culture crop. (So let's all keep spreading the concept of permaculture!  We may grow food forests instead of natural forests on at least some of our land, but that can still support nature, which mono-cultures generally don't.)

From Firescaping stuff I read in the past - there are lists out there of plants which are much more or much less, at risk from fire. Permaculture has info about "plants" that make good fire breaks, so researching that for your ecosystem makes sense from both approaches.

A former neighbour had a deep pond that they would keep mostly full in the summer despite our droughts, buy using a hose, specifically for the fire department. Since then, the Municipality has extended the Hydrants closer to that property. There is no hydrant near our place, so the concept of having a holding tank on your land for fire management seems like a good back-up plan.

There are many many things you can do to reduce the damage caused by wildfires, but in a climate and environment like you describe it will be next to impossible to prevent them entirely. You are too vulnerable to circumstances outside your control - eg how your neighbours manage their land.

I would seek advice from your local fire service - they will probably have specific recommendations and policies for your area. Ultimately you probably need to accept that fire WILL come through again, and probably semi-regularly. You need to design and manage with that in mind.

My experience of Portugal in summer was that it was incredibly hot and dry, but also that the agricultural systems in place seemed to promote enhanced aridity - I saw ploughed fields around olive orchards, presumably to mitigate against grass fire risks. That soil was orange with essentially zero carbon content to hold the moisture. Fields had gullies where rainwater would flash off, with no visible evidence of swales or similar to slow and sink water into the soil.

If I were in your shoes I would be looking for a multi-layered approach:

Hard barriers like firebreaks
Protection for key infrastructure - eg water storage and sprinklers on buildings and their surrounds
Brush removal - your goats will be part of this
water management in the landscape - are you hydrating the soil effectively with your seasonal flows? Are you building soil carbon, so your plants have access to more moisture later into the year and so will be less flammable?

Is key infrastructure - home, vehicles, people etc... build to be inherently firesafe?

Choppy choppy, burny burny...

Nothing you can do on your own to reduce the risk of wildfire except thin and burn. Shoot for removing all underbrush that will produce a 4 foot high flame length and try to remove lower limbs off of trees. If you can keep the fire on the ground it is a good thing. If it gets into the crowns of the trees you are screwed. Pile up cut brush and burn it, then quench it with water when it's all coals. Presto: Biochar! The way nature intended.

I am in Northern California, where the forest is all fire adapted. Which worked great when it burnt every few years from lightning strikes or native stewardship. Now it is so overgrown that a wildfire is unstoppable if it gets going. The only way a mixed conifer forest can be healthy is if it burns once in a while, in my opinion. I bet if you dig down about a foot you can identify layers of char in the soil from previous fires. Or at least we can here in California. But the reality is that it is too far gone now through the mismanagement of the 80's brand of "environmentalists" (aka people who live in cities and can't bear to see a tree cut down or a bush mowed,...) and now the work needs to be done by hand and by machine. And it's really hard. I have been working in woods lately that are so think with stunted trees and brush it's unbelievable. If I smell smoke I am RUNNING out of there!

The calculations I invented say that one person with hand tools can clear 1 acre every 7 working days, including the burning, which is a good way to spend a Saturday and a good excuse to drink some beer.

Congratulations on the new property.

Here are some threads that you or others might find interesting:

https://permies.com/t/206019/permaculture/Designing-wildfire-smoke

https://permies.com/t/75841/wildfire/Forest-Fire-protect

https://permies.com/t/50790/wildfire/Permaculture-fire-suppression

I'll try to write a good reply to this tomorrow, but for now this might keep you busy - After the fire - developing an action plan for a patch of burned forest in Portugal

Some excellent advice has already been given here. Take a look at this thread about prescribed burns.

First & foremost is safety. Personally I would keep the trees along the perimeter for privacy as you suggested. Then I would build a wide firebreak all around just inside of that. It will help prevent fires from getting in or out. Something like the water equipped ATVs shown in the thread above will be very useful every time you burn. Consult the forestry & firefighting professionals in your area for their expert advice. They will gladly help you do it right. Some trees survive fire much better than others so you might want to develop a plan to gradually replace trees that don't survive with a more tolerant variety. Again, consult the pros in your area. They are there to help you. Learn all you can & get as much help as you can before lighting the first fire.

Rudyard Blake wrote:

John F Dean wrote:As you have indicated, I would consider a firebreak ….at least to slow  the fire from being pushed by prevailing winds.   I suspect I might search a little more to get specifics on the pattern the fire spread in on previous occasions.  Having access to water may significantly help those fighting future fires.

There is a well on the property (don't know where it is yet as it's all overgrown and the owner doesn't remember), but wouldn't firefighting with our own water require an extremely high-powered pump in order to be effective? I used to work at sea and we did a lot of fire fighting training. We always used big diesel generator powered pumps to blast water through those special chunky hoses. Something to consider anyway.

As far as stopping a fire, the only real thing you can do is limiting the amount of fuel available to the fire. The other factor is water, proximity to the fire department  etc.
If you are not sure where the well is, then you don't know how deep the water is: the depth of your well, as well as the type of construction is the most important element to figure out how strong a pump you need. Past 20 ft, it gets harder to pull up water, especially to put out a fire.
The other one is the yearly precipitation you can count on where you are.
Can you find your nearest city in this data map?
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Portugal/average-yearly-precipitation.php
The type of soils you would have to dig through if a new well must be dug will also give you an idea of how arduous the task might be.
There is another solution, assuming the early precipitation is manageable, and that is a cistern.
The Romans used to build some pluviums in their Doma [residences.] The pluvium is essentially a patio with 4 rooves slanted inwards to collect rainwater in the center of their patio. That internal patio might have a small pond leading to an underground cistern that can be pumped at will for everything. It is an excellent system where water is scarce, as a small rain, like 1", on a large surface will collect an enormous amount of water. Here, we used to have asphalt shingles, which are not good enough for drinking, but in Portugal, many rooves are still make with clay tiles. Those are wonderful and very clean to drink from.
Here is the formula to figure it out the amount of water you can get.: [Make sure you measure from tip of the gutter to tip of gutters. The slant of the roof does not entered at all in the calculation]
https://www.raingutterprosinc.com/how-to-calculate-rainwater-volume-for-water-harvesting/#:~:text=Formula%3A%20Area%20(Length%20x%20Width)%20x%20Rainfall&text=A%20typical%20roof%20area%20can,formula%20for%20calculating%20rainwater%20harvests.
Pretty impressive, isn't it?!
If you know your neighbors, this might be a good topic to meet with them, get some ideas from them, Decide on a neighborhood course of action in case of fire etc.
Tell us how you are doing. Water is Life!