You

You can help your community to be prepared for fire.

What you can do to make you home and surrounding land fire safe.

Home Ignition Zone

The home plus 10 ft distance

It’s the "little things" that will endanger your home. Just a little ember landing on a little pile of flammable material will burn it. Spend a morning searching out and getting rid of those flammable little things outside and your home will be much safer.

1. Keep your rain gutters and roof clean of all flammable material.

2. Get rid of dry grass, brush and other flammable materials around your home—and don’t forget leaves, pine needles and bark walkways. Replace with well maintained (watered) landscape vegetation, green lawn, and landscape rocks.

3. Clear all flammable materials from your deck. This includes brooms, stacked wood and easily ignitable patio furniture.
Also enclose or board up the area under your deck to keep it from becoming a fuel bed for hot embers.

4. Move woodpiles and garbage cans away from your home. Keep woodpiles away from the home a distance of twice the height of the pile—more if lot size allows.

5. Use fine mesh screen (1/4" or less) to cover eaves, roof and foundation vents to prevent windblown embers from entering.

6. Inspect and clean your chimney every year. Trim away branches within 10 feet. Install a spark arrester with 1/4" or smaller mesh screen.

7. Got a propane tank? Get rid of any flammable materials within 10 feet of it and, if possible, position it at least 30 feet from any structures.

Defensible Space Zone

minimum of 100 feet distance from the home
Keep this area lean and green!

Create a Defensible Space Zone by keeping in mind the three R’s of defensible space:

1. Remove - dead and dying grass, shrubs and trees.

2. Reduce - the density of vegetation (fuel) and ladder fuels, those fuels extending from the ground to the tree canopies.

3. Replace - hazardous vegetation with less flammable, irrigated landscape vegetation including lawn, or other low growing groundcovers and flowering plants.

Wildland Fuel Reduction Zone

30 to 100 ft—or more—distance

Getting rid of the undergrowth and thinning out densely-crowded smaller trees in this outlying area will reduce fire intensity and slow the spread of a fire moving toward your home. Defensible space increases the odds of your home’s survival.
Experts recommend a minimum of 10 feet of spacing between individual trees and shrubs, measured at the crown (widest part) of the tree or shrub. You may need to increase this distance based on your property’s X-Factor.
Mature trees should also be limbed up 10 feet, or 1/3 of their live crown height, whichever is greater.
It’s possible, depending upon the size of your property that you will be limited by your property boundary and unable to complete the firewise measures identified in Zones 2 and 3. If this happens, talk with your neighbors and ask for their cooperation.

Get Involved

Attend local workdays! You'll meet interesting people, help out your community and make the world a little bit safer.

Slides below are from Somes Bar/Orleans Fire Safe Council's past events

Attend local Fire Safe Council meetings!