We live in western Colorado with lots of piñon-juniper nearby. Our firefighter son-in-law has helped immeasurably with guidance on defensible space and good ol’ fire science. Your fire department will visit your property and provide suggestions. Many of them look for opportunities and use them
As training exercises for their teams. Look up “fire embers” in wildfire for terrifying detail about the main cause of spread in semi urban and rural areas where housing is lost. We are working this summer to install metal screening everywhere embers could gain hold. (120 year old brick Victorian) The firewood pile has been moved a good bit away from the house. We pulled out huge, ratty, old junipers and other shrubs up against the house and outbuildings. We have room to build a smaller structure and are in planning for an earth bag building as an ADU with perma sensibilities incorporated. Mowing tall grasses, keeping our 100 year old trees trimmed, irrigated and away from the house, and helping our neighbors do the same are all on the must-do list. Have a plan to leave and where to go if your roads are blocked. Your fire department should have this plan to share as well. AND get to know your neighbors. Last year squatters knocked over a charcoal grill and started a small grass fire. Neighbors started calling and two dozen people loaded up with shovels and headed over. The fire was stopped before the rural volunteer fire department arrived. (Be very careful with this one!) Air quality we handle indoors with purifiers in each bedroom. We have been hammered with California wildfire smoke some years. Lastly, landscape sensibly. And with all of this in mind, there is no other part of the country we would love as much. ❤️
