Pulling Our Weight

3) Firescaping
t to your front door in the first place. Bill Melvin, the owner of EcoScape Designs, focuses on property landscaping to mitigate approaching wildfires. As a firefighter in the Four Mile blaze, he’s got more than enough motivation.

“It was an experience I will never forget,” Melvin told me. “I got to see firsthand what worked, and what didn’t. Yes, at times there are fires that won’t stop at anything. But mitigation does work.”

The logic of landscape mitigation is simple: eliminate fuels from the surrounding area, and the fire won’t reach your home.

But the implementation is far from easy. A stone apron—gravel or patio stones, for example—around the home is a good start. Removing dry, dead debris from the yard is obvious—less manageable is the thinning of existing vegetation. Having space between trees decreases the chances of a canopy fire, which leaps from one treetop to another; if you’re on a steep slope, like, you know, in a canyon, the separation needs to be greater, since fire moves faster uphill (that old “Heat rises” thing that makes your attic unbearable in the summertime).

The significance of smart landscaping is that it has the potential to save communities, not just individual homes. A well-planned neighborhood landscape can starve a fire of its fuel, preventing further destruction.

“There are lots of newcomers to this area,” Melvin explained, “who aren’t familiar with the dangers.”

Melvin will bring up fire mitigation with clients even if they are simply calling about traditional landscaping, recognizing that, like with new-build houses, there is a window of opportunity to help the neighborhood. Much of this outreach is targeted at homeowners outside of the foothills, who are unaware that grassland non-alpine fires can occur with equal intensity. As Melvin says, “You won’t have time to fight it.”

While the message coming from prevention professionals seems dire, the point is not to scare homeowners into never moving into the Front Range. It’s the opposite: the tools do exist for proper, effective wildfire mitigation—the trick is involving every last person in the fight.

Let’s run a quick thought experiment, for the sake of illustration.

It’s mid-July, and there’s a budding wildfire running up the side of one of the dozens of canyons in Boulder County’s foothills. It’s steep, inaccessible terrain, so the prospect of firefighters reaching the front is close to zero. High winds, low humidity and spiking temperatures all collude to create the perfect conditions for the fire to continue its hike.

But vegetation in the community has been thinned, and neighbors had previously gotten together and burned brush piles (with the right permit, of course). “Ladder fuels,” or vegetation serving as a stairway for a ground fire to reach the trees, have been removed, and sprinklers on asphalt shingle roofs have been turned on. In the end, a canopy fire was prevented and any flying embers that fell upon well-constructed homes either burned slow enough to be put out, or didn’t burn at all.

Now imagine that even half of those homes haven’t taken precautions when building, and haven’t considered landscaping with fire mitigation in mind. The initial ground fire might climb the ladder fuel to the canopies, both pushing radiant heat and sending embers a mile ahead of the front. If the ember doesn’t ignite the structure, then the pine will once the canopy fire catches up.

Wildfire Partners, a flagship program that Andrew Notbohm is spearheading for Boulder County, is aiming to fill those gaps in wildfire mitigation through comprehensive community outreach.

“Sometimes we don’t focus enough on what we have in common. But everyone wants the same thing—public safety,” Notbohm told me.

Wildfire Partners sows the first seed: homeowners can call the Partners, get a home assessment, receive a copy of the report (hence Notbohm’s iPad) with recommendations, and even receive rebates for work done to mitigate. This cross-community pollination of the message of mitigation is difficult, of course, but it’s necessary given the large number of existing homes unprepared for a large fire.

“If you’re building a new home in a Boulder County wildfire Zone One—basically the mountains—you need to have defensible space, and build a home with ignition-resistant construction. We do have requirements in our code, for non-combustible siding, Class A roofing.” But, current homes are immune to the oversight, unless retrofitting occurs.

As with nearly all public concerns, the barrier to wildfire mitigation is often cost. Landscaping is pricey, and even if you go at it alone, your precious time isn’t free. Retrofitting your entire house with new siding? Don’t Google it, you’ll clutch at your chest (or wallet).

But consider the alternatives. Firefighting costs across the west are largely shouldered by federal agencies, meaning taxpayers foot the bill. Insurance costs soar if ill-prepared communities look the other way before a fire. If you want, try to quantify the price of flammable documents showing your family’s genealogy, or the sentimental value of memories in your home. In the long run, it’s pennies on the dollar.

You can contact Wildlife Partners at 303-446-7877 or at wildfirepartners.com