Defensible space is divided into three actively managed landscape zones that collectively reduce your risk of losing your home to wildfire.
Start in Zone 0, the first 5 ft of your house. Best practice is to keep this zone clear of anything that can burn.
Next, assess Zone 1, the area 5-30 ft from your home. Focus on plant size, spacing, and maintenance.
Zone 1 Objective: Reduce potential fire and heat close to your house
- Separate plantings with hardscape, such as decorative pebbles, to help slow and potentially stop fire from spreading to your home.
- By creating space between plantings and keeping your plants well-maintained you can help firefighters more effectively and safely access and protect your home during a fire.
- For areas closer to the home, select low-growing, low-maintenance plants and keep them appropriately irrigated.
- Limb up trees so a fire in low shrubs/groundcover vegetation cannot reach the lowest limbs and ignite the tree canopy.
- Composted wood chips or small to medium-sized bark are good mulch choices. Limit mulch depth to 2” and separate areas of mulch with hardscaping.
If your property has a Zone 2, which extends 30 to 100 feet from the home, you have more flexibility.
Zone 2 Objective: Decrease the intensity and flame length of a fire by reducing plant density.
Larger shrubs and trees can be utilized in this zone. Continue to separate planting groups with hardscape or well hydrated mown grass or mulch.
- Additional space between planting is needed on slopes.
- Remove all dead vegetation.
- Cut grass and weeds to 4” once they turn yellow/brown.
- Continue to keep vegetation under trees low to the ground below trees to avoid fire reaching into the trees and into the tree canopies
- You may wish to collaborate with your neighbors to plan out this defensible zone while maintaining privacy.
Creating defensible space from your home out to your property line by focusing on fire smart spacing and good plant maintenance, you are significantly decreasing your home's risk from wildfire.
