Firescaping

How to landscape your home to help protect against fire

The right kind of landscaping can help firefighters defend your property in the event of wildfire.

A fire-prevention demonstration garden in Santa Barbara illustrates how certain plantings around a home can help reduce overall property damage in the event of a wildfire. This four-zone approach to landscaping calls for plants within 20 to 30 feet of a house (Zone 1) to have fire-resistant properties.

Crassula ovata

Agave americana 'Variagata'

Phormium 'Maori Queen'

Crassula ovata

Agave americana

Phormium 'Maori Queen'

California landscape architect Owen Dell has made firescaping a specialty. Says Dell, "Aesthetics is not one of the tradeoffs in fire-safe landscaping. A good design can incorporate fire safety, drought tolerance and all the other benefits of landscaping, all in one package." He offers these tips:

Defensive Space: By reducing the amount of vegetation around your home, you make it easier for firefighters to protect your property. Thin native vegetation, allowing individual plants to remain in clumps that are separated from each other by at least 20 feet. Reduce flammable vegetation around the house. Cut back tree branches that hang over the roof. Keep shrubs and trees trimmed to remove low-hanging branches and deadwood. Cut down weeds.

Landscape Structures: Use non-flammable building materials like stone, brick, adobe and concrete. Avoid flammable wood structures in the garden. Wood decks hanging over unkempt vegetation are the worst offender. Decks and other wood structures must be built to resist fire in high fire hazard areas; check with your local building department. Cover decks with approved fire resistant skirting or use concrete or stone patios instead. Flammable wood fences can act as fuses in a fire; use chain link fences or masonry walls instead. Avoid using flammable mulches like bark or wood chips near the house; use gravel, crushed rock or decomposed granite instead.

Plantings: Some plants are more flammable than others. Conifers like pine, cypress, cedar and juniper are the worst offenders. Other very flammable plants include bougainvillea, pampas grass, eucalyptus, New Zealand flax, chamise and many grasses. Any plant will burn, but plants with lots of water stored in their leaves, or which contain large quantities of salts, are more resistant to fire. Examples are succulents, oleander, myoporum, lawns and many low-growing groundcovers.

Zone System: The way plants are arranged in the landscape is more important than the kind of plants you use. The Zone System uses four bands of plantings to slow an approaching fire and create defensible space.