Simple actions can make a big difference to protect homes from fire

The Los Angeles fires that have damaged more than 12,000 structures are a reminder of a new but growing reality for Americans living in hotter, drier and more fire-prone areas – the need to create defensible space and fire-harden their homes.

This doesn't mean cutting down every tree and surrounding a home with a desert of pea gravel, wildfire safety and insurance experts are careful to say. Instead it's implementing the tenets of this new-to-many concept to give homeowners in fire-prone areas a fighting chance when firestorms swoop down on their neighborhoods.

"You can maintain the essence of your esthetic and still create a defense," said Roy Wright, President and CEO of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety.

He cautioned that none of this is meant to blame victims of these horrific fires. Why some houses burn and others survive isn’t always obvious and can seem capricious and haphazard, despite preparation and mitigation.

"I'm not here to tell that defensible space would have changed the Pacific Palisade fire," he said. "When you're dealing with sustained winds of 50 to 70 miles an hour on a downward slope. you have all the ingredients of conflagration."

The Los Angeles fire can be compared to a Category 4 hurricane, which often means even the best preparation might not save a home. "But we have a lot more 'Category 1 fires'" and those are survivable with preparation, he said.

What are defensible spaces?

The concept of defensible space was invented in California to describe an area where firefighters could safely defend a home from a fire in a wildland, said Jessamyn Hise, community outreach manager with Fire Safe Marin, a non-profit in Marin County in Northern California.

That's now morphed into the tools and techniques that allow a home to defend itself.

It's also no longer a California-only concept. Today it applies to much of the country, said Wright. Oregon, New Mexico and Colorado have all either passed laws or set aside money to help homeowners fire harden their lots. Wildfires in Hawaii, New York and Tennessee have shown it's not only a Western phenomenon.

At baseline, the concept boils down to a few elements, all meant to keep flying embers from igniting something that could lead to a house burning down.

Most important is removing everything flammable from within five feet of the house and each outbuilding and insuring that embers can't make their way inside through roof and crawlspace vents.

There's good data that it works. During the 2022 Oak fire in Mariposa County, California, homes that were compliant with defensible space standards were six times more likely to survive, according to the California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force.

"When they rebuild Pacific Palisades, they can rebuild it in a way that the community will look beautiful, maintain its existing charm and absolutely be resistant to the next wildfire," said Todd Lando, a Battalion Chief wildfire specialist with Central Marin Fire Department in Marin County, California.

"No one likes to be told what to do by government," said Lando. "But we're trying to help people understand the changes they can make that will minimally impact them but protect their homes."

Sometimes it can mean protecting homeowners against rules that put their homes at risk, said Wright.

"In Colorado, they changed their law related to homeowners associations," he said. "HOAs now cannot mandate that you do anything that's going to exacerbate your wildfire risk." That might include requiring wooden fences and decks or only allowing vegetation or wood mulch in yards.

Here are some of the important ways homes can be protected, wherever wildfire is a danger.

Embers are the enemy

While a wall of flame advancing on a house is a clear danger, embers are a common cause of ignition, especially in the face of a wildfire ember storm.

"Embers can be the size of your thumb, the size of the palm of your hand," said Wright. "These things fly far – it's absolutely conceivable to see embers fall a mile, a mile and a half or even two miles away."

If one of those lands on anything close to a home, "now you've got a fire right up next to your house," he said.

As far too many Americans have learned in the past few years, "fires leap-frog," said Hise.

Create a 5-foot perimeter around your house

The first and most important aspect of creating defensible space is what experts call Zone Zero. It's the five-foot perimeter around a house that must be clear of anything flammable.

"It's been determined that between 60% and 90% of home ignitions start within five feet of the home," said Lando.

The idea is to get rid of anything that could easily catch on fire if an ember dropped on it. "You want it to fizzle out," said Wright. "That's why the area five feet closest to you house needs to be entirely non-combustible."

"The goal is to create a home that's less vulnerable to ignition," said Hise. When she works with homeowners, these are the most important areas they look at:

• Cutting trees growing near the home's roof line.

• Patrolling anywhere dry leaves or pine needles can collect, including at the base of the house and in gutters that can collect leaves or pine needles. Use gutter covers to keep leaves out.

• Clearing fallen branches and limbs.

• Install vents in attic and crawlspaces that don't allow embers to enter.

• Not allowing wooden fences touch the house. "We've seen in the Palisades fire that although homes are far apart, the fence lines can carry fires house to house," said Hise. Instead, make the last five feet of a fence metal.

• Removing jute or other flammable doormats, brooms on the porch, flammable outdoor furniture within 5 feet of the house. "It's shocking how easy they are to ignite, they're like kindling," said Lando.

• Insuring the bottom six inches of the home's walls are made of brick, concrete or other non-flammable materials. This is a common protection against termites and also works for fires.

Clean up ladder fuels

Outside of the 5-foot zone, it's okay to have trees but they have to be cared for, said Lando. "They provide shade and keep moisture in the ground."

But trees and tall plants need to be separated, especially easily ignited species such as juniper, Italian cypress and bamboo, said Hise. Clearing the ground under them of leaf and needle litter, fallen branches and other items that could burn up into the tree's canopy, causing it to ignite.

"We also tell people to limb their trees up to about a third of third of the way off the ground, to keep any fire on the ground from climbing up," Lando said.

Healthy trees are fine, in their place, said Wright. "You don't need to clearcut the lot, but you need the trees and their canopies to be away from the house by five or ten feet."

Beyond Zone 0

Fire experts think in terms of concentric circles around a home. Zone 0 is the closest, then comes Zone 1, which is five to 30 feet away. This zone should be "lean, clean and green," said Lando.

Lawns are fine but having hardscape pathways of gravel or brick also help reduce the spread of fire.

Also, make sure to clear combustibles and vegetation around fences, sheds, outdoor furniture and play structures. Liquid propane storage tanks should have at least 10 feet of clearance.

Zone 2 extends from 30 to 100 feet around the house. This is outside the home's defense zone. Here the focus is on fuel reduction, clearing dead grass, weeds and plants and favoring native, fire-safe species. All wood piles should have a minimum of 10 feet of clearance in all directions.

Zone 3 is the access zone, making sure to clear a path so even if embers are falling, residents can get out and firefighters and first responders can get in. This includes thinking vertically, as fire trucks are tall.

Finally – Close the garage door

A surprising number of otherwise well-protected homes burn because the owners leave their garage doors open when they evacuate.

"We've seen hundreds of people evacuate and leave their garage door open," said Lando. "And then your house is going to burn down."

It's often not the homeowners fault, he said. The majority of homes today have garage door openers. During fires, the electricity can go out and then that opener doesn't work, meaning the door has to be operated manually.

Unfortunately, in an evacuation situation people don't always have the time to get back out of their car and manually close the door, so they leave it open and drive away.

Even more heartbreakingly, not everyone is able to manually open their garage door.

"We've had cases of elderly people who perished inside their garages because they couldn't get the door open," Lando said.

While he knows many criticize California for having too many regulations, he's personally seen the positive results of a law that went into effect in 2019 requiring all automatic garage doors to have battery backups.

"It has saved lives and houses," he said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Defensible space: Giving your house a better chance against fire