Tehachapi News

'Easier to place blame than to move your woodpile'

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The destructive wildfire raging throughout last week in Santa Barbara îllustrated the lessons the Greater Tehachapi Firesafe Council has been working hard to bring to the public.

The message is simple: Homeowners can protect their rural homes against wildfires with some analysis, planning and weekend labor.

Another message came through loud and clear at a workshop in Tehachapi presented May 4 by the council, the Kern County Fire Department and the Bureau of Land Management: the media image of helpless, fire-displaced homeowners as victims is no longer acceptable.

Homeowners, the experts said, need to take responsibility for the safety of their homes.

That means cleaning up debris, moving woodpiles, closing up niches where embers can lodge, trimming vegetation and woody dead branches, cutting off tree branches to six feet above the ground where licking flames cannot reach, planting fire-resistant landscaping, mowing a 100-foot defensible space, separating fencing from attachment to the house, investing in a fireproof roof, storing flammable liquids properly and making sure the roadway to the house can accommodate a big fire engine.

The remediation has to be done before the fire, said featured speaker Pat Durland of Stone Creek Fire LLC, which provides wild land fire and community assistance in planning and prevention.

“It becomes a personal choice,” Durland said. “If you decide not to do it and your house burns down, you no longer fit the definition of victim…It's easier to place the blame than to move your woodpile.”

Reliance on a magic bullet of a gel to spray on at the last minute, he said, is not the answer. He said the gels have long-term toxic cleanup issues in addition to providing a false sense of security.

Durland said the rewards of planning ahead are intangible.

“The incentives are not in proportion to the work,” he said. “You are not going to be on TV but you are going to sleep better knowing your house is safe.

“They are telling me they have no time [for preparation], then they're taking a year to try to get back into a home after fire,” he said.

The real culprit

Durland said it used to be assumed that it was the big flames that ignited homes in a wildfire.

In reality, they discovered, it was something a lot smaller and more insidious.

In most cases, he said, it's the embers, flying twigs and small flames that ignite homes in the path of a wildfire.

“Embers travel a mile or two,” he said

Windblown embers find tiny crevices, piles of dead leaves, pieces of decorative driftwood, woodpiles and fences, smoldering until they are hot enough to ignite and blaze a pathway straight to the bigger fuel source -- the home.

“It's not so much where you live that determines your exposure,” Durland said. “It is the condition of the structure and the ignitability of those fuels around your house for 100 feet.”

Derrick Davis, prescribed fire and fuels management for the Kern County Fire Department, emphasized the need for defensible space.

“Grass fields are the primary carrier of fire in Kern County,” Davis said.

“Hopefully, when people are given the information on how and why, they will take the responsibility and take the steps to try to protect their homes,” said Jeannine Giuffre, president of the Tehachapi Firesafe Council.

The Firesafe Council meets the second Wednesday of the month at the Golden Hills Community Service District at 2 p.m. She urged the public to attend.

As a bonus, Giuffre, gardner/landscaper consultant, has good advice about what to plant and what to rip out for fire safety.

For information, visit the Web sites www.firewise.org; www.cafirealliance.org; and www.firesafecouncil.org.

Tips from the BLM

The U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management, which oversees millions of acres of federal land, and the California Fire Alliance urges homeowners who live in the wild land urban interface to take responsibility for creating and maintaining 100 feet of clean, open space around their homes.

Five easy steps to create an effective defensible space around homes:

• Remove dead shrubs, dried grass, fallen branches and dried leaves 100 feet around your house.

• Trim and separate plants and shrubs to stop fire from spreading.

• Remove ladder fuels - plants, shrubs and low branches that let a fire on the ground climb into the trees.

• Clear five feet around the base of the house and fill the space with fire resistant plants or materials such as rocks or gravel.

• Take care of the clean, open space around your home on a regular basis.
For more information on defensible space, visit www.CAFireAlliance.com.

Posted May 11, 2009; Volume 110 - No. 5, print edition May 13, 2009.