Since we had a huge issues with wildfires in parts of our state this week, I just wanted to mention firescaping.

Firescaping involves careful plant selection and maintenance to reduce flammable material around your home. I practice it to a certain extent and find it gives me some peace of mind.

CREATE A DEENSIBLE PERIMETER AROUND YOUR HOME: In places like California where fire danger is a constant factor, it is often recommended that you not plant anything within 30 or 40 feet of your home so you see a lot of concrete and rock hardscaping there closer to the homes and plants further away--often on the perimeter of the home. Not only does this reduce your fire risk, it also gives firefighters room to maneuver a truck around your home on all 4 sides to protect it in the event of an advancing wildfire. I don't go that far and have trees, shrubs, vines, groundcovers and perennials on all 4 sides of our home. Beyond the plants close to the home, though, there are open spaces large enough for a standard size brush rig to drive all the way around the house and barn. This is important--firefighters cannot easily fight a fire on the east side of your home if they can only park and drive on the west side of it!

LIMB UP YOUR TREES: You can keep fire from climbing your plants just by limbing up all trees so the lowest limbs are 8' above the ground. This is important. If you have short grass, it is hard for the flames to get tall enough (in standard grassfire or moderate wildfire conditions) to climb up into the trees if your lowest limbs are 8' above the ground. Of course, if you have tall prairie grass under trees, the flames still will reach the trees. It also is a good idea to keep tall ornamental grasses like Pampas Grass further away from the house because they act like a ladder fuel too.

LIMIT VINES NEAR THE HOUSE: Fire can climb vines and this enables fire to get up onto the roof of the house or into the crowns of trees if the vines climb into the trees. This is a hard rule for me to follow and it is the firescaping rule I tend to break. (Nobody's perfect!)

We have wisteria on a fence on the north side of the house, Virginia Creeper on the north wall of the house, and trumpet creeper on the east and south walls of the house. All of these are deciduous vines though, and in a bad fire year, I prune them back to the ground in the fall so they don't serve as a ladder fuel for fire to climb onto the walls of the house. I also grow annual vines like morning glory and purple hyacinth bean vine and let them climb the railings of the wraparound porch, but am careful to remove them completely as soon as they freeze in the fall.

PLANT SELECTION: Some plants burn more easily than others. The cedar trees that grow like weeds over much of Oklahoma are a good example. They burn like mad and their sap can fly burning through the air for great distances if the tree gets hot and the limbs "explode". For that reason, we have removed all cedars within 100 yards of our home.....except those on the neighbor's property to our south over which we have no control. I'll never have a cedar anywhere on our property that is close enough to threaten our buildings. So far, we've removed all the cedars on the two acres closest to the house and barn, and we'll keep removing cedar from the remaining acreage--slowly but surely--as the years go on. You can google and find lists of firewise plants or check out the link below. Many needle-type evergreens burn easily, so I only have low-growing groundcover types in one area of our property and they are on the north side of the house, which is our least fire-prone area because of the lay of the land where the house is built.

PROPER MAINTENANCE: This seems like a no-brainer, but it is a HUGE issue--especially in rural areas. Keep your grass cut short and don't let tall grass and brush grow up along fence lines, houses, sheds, barns, outbuildings and animal housing. I cannot begin to tell you how many times we are fighting grassfires where people's homes are in danger because they've let grass get 3 to 5' tall within inches of their buildings even though the front yard is neatly mowed. Or, maybe they've mowed the grass within 20' of the buildings down short, but have tall grasses just 20' from their buildings. Tall grass burns quickly so always keep tall grasses a good distance away from your buildings. I feel pretty comfortable if everything within 20 yards of a building is cut short. And, just in case you didn't know, even green grass can burn under certain conditions.

STORE HAY WISELY: Don't store your bales of hay along the roadway where sparks from passing vehicles can ignite grass and move quickly towards them, or where they are a tempting target for an arsonist. Don't store your bales of hay along the outside wall of a structure.

Understand, too, that hay bale fires are almost impossible to extinguish. Standard brush-type fire trucks only carry a few hundred gallons of water and that amount of water may knock down visible flame but the bales tend to smoulder and reignite. If you have a hay bale fire, it is important to get the burning bales away from other bales so the fire won't spread and it is important, after the flames have been knocked down, to tear open the burnt bales, spread them out, put a sprinkler on them and water them for hours or days until they are so wet they cannot smoulder and burn and then dispose of them. A lot of the ranchers here have someone dig a hole and bury the bales in soil to smother out the flames in the smouldering bales.

KEEP MULCH MOIST: Mulch is a great gardening tool and I would never give it up because of the risk of it burning. However, I try to keep my mulch and the ground beneath it moist, especially in otherwise dry conditions. Mulch can and will burn, so I always hose it down if fire is burning in the area. Wet mulch can eventually dry out enough to burn, but it will burn more slowly if it ignites.

PROPANE TANKS AND GAS STORAGE CANS: Keep the grass cut short around your propane tank. If tall flames reach a tank and burn around it long enough, it can explode. Don;t leave cans of gasoline sitting outside where grasssfire flames can reach them. Seems like common sense, but people don't always use common sense.

SELECT FENCING CAREFULLY: If you have a choice when fencing a pasture, metal T-posts don't burn and wood fence posts do. Often, we have to leave fence posts burning (they'll burn for hours and sometimes for days) because you don't have the time or water to put them out when you are having to focus your efforts on stopping the advance of a grass fire or wildfire. The burning posts can send off embers that ignite or reigite nearby partially burned or unburned areas.

In urban areas, fire often travels along wood privacy fences and spreads quickly from yard to yard that way. Iron fencing doesn't burn, but doesn't give you privacy the way wood fencing does. This is a hard one but it is something to think about. If fire is moving through your neighborhood, putting a sprinkler along the yard near the fenceline can prevent your fence from catching fire though.

I've always liked the look of the decorative white plastic or vinyl fencing, but it burns easily in grass fires or wild fires so I won't have it around our house as I'd once wanted to do.

EXCEPTIONAL DROUGHT CONDITIONS: In a very extreme drought situation, once your grass is dormant, you need to cut it as close to the ground as you can. During the Exceptional Drought of 2005-2006, experts recommended that we use a weed eater to cut back all the grass as close to the ground as possible (I think they recommended leaving stubble 1/4" to 1/2" tall) and several of us here in the neighborhood did so--especially after we had 4 wildfires here on our road within about a 2-week period. It took forever to do it, and it looked horrible, but it greatly reduced the chance of grass fire spreading on our property. I was worried the grass would be damaged, but took the chance it wouldn't because the fire risk was so high. Both the prairie grasses and bermuda grasses bounced back from the super-close trimming just fine once rains returned to the area the following year.

LOCATE BRUSH PILES AWAY FROM ROADWAYS AND STRUCTURES: If you are in a rural area where you're allowed to burn brush piles, always build your piles well away from roadways and structures. Like hay bales, roadside brush piles are very tempting targets for arsonist. Also, be sure to locate the brushpiles well away from trees, power lines and structures. People often underestimate how high flames from a brushpile will go into the air and accidentally set trees or structures on fire.

WATCH WHERE YOUR PARK YOUR VEHICLE. This is more often an issue in rural areas where farmers and ranchers open gates and drive on dirt tracks in pastures. Be sure any place you drive your vehicle has been cut short so the heat from your catalytic converter doesn't start a grass fire that then devours your vehicle.

The attached link contains additional ideas for using wise landscape practices to reduce your risk of grassfire and wildfire.

Understand, too, that you can only do so much. When fast-moving, wind-driven wildfires are sweeping across an area, even great maintenance and firewise landscaping may not save your home or property. So, always select home improvement materials wisely. For example, siding like Jim Hardy Hardiplank is very fire-resistant. Out in rural areas, and more and more in town as well, metal roofs are very popular because of their fire resistance.

In general, if a fire department can reach your place ahead of a grassfire or wildfire, they often can save it if winds are below about 35 miles per hour. However, when winds are in the 40-50-60-70 mph range, the likelihood of homes being saved drops exponentially.

BE AWARE: When wildfires begin sweeping through the area, your local Emergency Management Office may use the National Weather Service Weather Radio (now replaced by the newer All-Hazards Radio) to broadcast local emergency news, including Fire Warnings regarding evacuations. I believe our local Emergency Management Director asked the NWS Office to set off the weather/all hazards radio in our county to alert people to evacuate in advance of Thursday's wildfires. This is a great way to get the news out quickly. Usually, local radio and TV stations broadcast evacuation news as well. If you smell smoke in your area, be extra alert. Round up your pets and secure them inside a structure if you can't take them with you.

PREPARE TO EVACUATE: Prepare to leave, even if you ultimately don't have to. Don't wait until you see flames to try to leave--if you can see flames approaching, you may not be able to outrun the fire even in a vehicle, especially if roadways are clogged by traffic.

As part of your preparations, grab a go bag (you should always have one packed, you know) and get your medications and important papers if you have time.

I always keep sprinklers set up on all sides of the house in fire season and always turn them on if wildfire is in the area, whether I am leaving or staying at the house. You can often save your home by watering down the perimeter of the house, including the roof, walls and fences. A couple of hours of watering is better than a few minutes. As firefighters were fighting the fires this week, I saw people standing in their yards with the hose in the hands even as flames came at them....and close to them. Please don't do that. Set a sprinkler or lay a running hose on the ground and LEAVE.

Please, please evacuate. Two people died in Montague County, TX, which is across the Red River from Love and Jefferson Counties, OK, because they refused to leave. (Neither Law Enforcement Officers nor Firefighters can legally force anyone to leave their own property, even in the face of approaching fire.) Their son decided to flee at the last second but was overcome by the flames and severely burned. Please don't let that happen to you.

Wildfire is a constant danger in many parts of our state and it is not solely a rural issue as we all saw this week.

Please protect yourself and your property from wildfire. Everyone always thinks that grass fires and wild fires happen to someone else and not to them. We almost never go to a fire and hear someone say "I expected this and was prepared in order to minimize the danger". Instead, we usually hear "I never thought this would happen to me." Fire happens. Be prepared.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Firewise Landscaping