Reducing fires’ threats to our homes and communities
We will next turn our attention to reducing fires’ threats to our homes and communities in the lower elevations of the Sierra foothills where private lands and homes are more common.
Live Oak trees in the foothills usually have branches that grow toward wherever there is sunlight, from down at ground level, toward the sides of the tree, as well as upward. And their leaves, whether green or dry are extremely flammable, so they nearly explode when they are ignited. Thus, it’s important, when creating or expanding the “defensible space” around one’s home, to at least remove the fuels between the ground and as high as one can reach. In our case, I have been expanding the perimeter of our “defensible space,” especially on the southwest side of our home from which our normal afternoon winds blow.
Looking northwest in this photo, the prevailing afternoon winds blow from left to right, so the up-wind (left) edge of the burn has a high-volume hose and a space for walking and bringing the pruned fuels to the fire. Once the ignition has begun, the pruned branches on the NE (right) side of the picture are brought to the fire first so that the down-wind fuels get burned before the winds come up, so the smoke is carried aloft.
At our site, the ignition would normally occur around 8:00 a.m.- 9:00 a.m. during the transition from the downslope, nightly breezes to the up-slope, daytime winds. It is then that the smoke rises vertically allowing the pruned branches to be fed to the fire from all sides.
Hardscaping a Home
This picture is looking westward along the south wall of our house with the hot tub to the left. The siding on the house is cement-based, so it won’t burn. When we first moved in, we landscaped around this side of the house with “sheet-mulch,” basically a layer of cardboard covered with wood chips to prevent the growth of weeds. But the cardboard, of course, will burn, so we have replaced it with slate from our local quarry.
I chose two pallets of slate and a neighbor-friend brought them home in his truck.
We first placed several layers of woven “weed cloth” down where the slate would go to minimize weed establishment. Then slate was placed like a big puzzle, large pieces first, then smaller ones and finally gravel to fill it in.
Here one can see the completed section of the slate job between the hot tub and the house, but looking eastward here. The final step is the application of “PermaSand,” a polymer-based product that is applied dry between the slabs of slate, on top of the “weed cloth” and gravel. Then it is watered in, where it hardens and holds it all together leaving no fuel next to the house, keeping it as safe as possible from wildfires.
