I agree. There is monumental amount of work to do. Clearing the canopy never hurts, but defensible space on its own didn’t help much in Paradise. Lots of places had good defensible space, but 90% of the structures in town still burned. We gotta make sure people do home hardening in addition. Things like taking the gutters off your house, adding rock or concrete for the first couple feet from the house, installing new vent screens, screening or enclosing under decks, and just basic maintenance like repairing weathered facia boards and making sure the roof edge is clear of moss, etc. I spent a couple months working in Paradise after the Camp Fire and one thing I didn’t see was any poorly-maintained houses.
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Till you reduce the biomass in the forested areas, and improve the urban interface, its just gonna be a yearly cycle, government doesnt fix this. When insurance says no more in california and power companies abandon service areas.
Make land clearing property tax deductible, enforce clearing, double prevention not suppression.
Sorry, but its not 747s and helitankers but viable fuel reduction and prevention.
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Sound advice. Watching cars drive thru fires you can see that the embers are everywhere and that is all it takes to find a little stash of kindling close to the house and get it started or leaves in the gutters, bone dry from summer.
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As one of the few survivors of the camp fire I can tell you defensible space is everything. Trimming tree high , removing excess stuff . What did you call it once… the personal collections of junk people keep around there houses/property. The things you mentioned are imperative if we plan to keep living in the trees. I have cleared more lots than I can remember. I have cleared my property and those around me… I cut it down to the ground… I use wire fences instead of wood… there were no wood fences left in paradise… Privacy is sort of a bad thing when it comes to defensible space. I work on this almost every day. Me and the weed eater will be back out there tomorrow… I have some property that needs a 4th cutting Working with the land to keep it safe… if you cannot use fire to clear the land then you should emulate what fire does… Clear the low level clutter. It was quite amazing. the fire hit the 4 corners of my property and stopped… Cars left were still there safely surrounded by brown dirt. Defensible space and how to create it have become sort of a manta with me. I wear equipment out and go thru alot of 50-1 mixture . Gotten pretty good at sharpening. … This is no place for the lazy or uninvolved to live. You want to be safe it is something you have to earn… every day. Keep it green and keep it clean… No guarantee but it improves your odds … gives you the time maybe to get out… I have cleaned the easements all the way to the next cross street.
Sort of passionate about this huh?
this is behind my property… Not much left of the fire ladder here …
This is just something that has more meaning to me than most I think. It is so hard to watch Greenville have to learn to live with what we now know as the new “normal” here . To watch Westwood or some other wonderful piece of our history go thru the anxiety of waiting . Not the best of things… and off my soapbox
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The Camp fire was an amazing testimonial to the folks who took defensible space. Not all but a fare few.
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I’ve cleared the canopy of all my trees to height of 6’ should I go higher?
Depends on the tree. If it is on flat grounds or a slope, where it sits in relationship to other trees and buildings or egress routes. Branches over your egress route is not good. Trees under trees are troublesome The previous picture is worth a thousand words… Go as high as the tree lets you . Some of us spent a good portion of last season talking about this. The thread was Obstacles to Landscape hazard reduction.
Might be a good read for you. If you want message me and we can talk details away from here
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