We cannot create a future without fire, but we can build one where communities are safer and wildfires cause less damage. There are several critical actions that individuals and communities can take to reduce the risk and impacts of wildfire.
Community Planning
It’s essential that every community has in place and implements a community wildfire protection plan (CWPP). A CWPP ensures population centers are as safe as they can be and ready to confront wildfire when it occurs.
Defensible Space
Defensible Space – Minimizing flammable material and vegetation in the area surrounding your home can make all the difference. Learn more about how to create defensible spaces 5, 30, and 100 feet from your home.
Home Hardening
Homes and other buildings are often the most flammable materials in a wildfire. Ensuring that embers do not ignite on your home is priority #1. Fire resistant roofing and siding along with screening or installing ember resistant vents are critical.
Wildland Urban Interface
Often referred to by the acronym WUI (pronounced Woo-ie) this is the area within about a mile and a half from the edge of town. Vegetation in this zone should be managed carefully to reduce fire ignition, spread, and ensure safe transportation routes in the face of fire. Management in the WUI includes thinning, prescribed fire, and fire breaks.
From ensuring coordinated evacuation plans, contributing to education campaigns on home hardening, mitigating effects of smoke on vulnerable populations, to helping secure grants for fuels reduction in the WUI. There is a role for everyone in contributing to a wildfire resilient community.
A community wildfire protection plan identifies a suite of strategies that a community can implement to make it more likely to cope with the risk of wildfire in the vicinity. A good plan includes:
- A plan to reduce human caused ignitions.
- A plan to strategically reduce fuel loads in the wildland urban interface, including a plan for fuel breaks and defensible space.
- A plan to reduce the ignitability of homes and other structures in the community.
- A disaster plan for community resource when a fire occurs.
- A plan to restore beneficial fire, to the extent possible, in the surrounding landscape.