Wildfire Strikes Home

As climate change continues to wreak havoc on the environment, devastating wildfires, both natural and manmade, are increasing. The figure for average acres burned has increased from almost 2 million acres in 1992 to nearly 7 million in 2012, which set a new record with an average of 165 acres burned per fire. Things are heating up, but global warming isn’t the only problem. Budgets for fire suppression have been slashed severely. The number of air tankers has decreased from 44 in 2002 to just 9 in 2012, which means fast attacks on fledgling fires will grow more difficult in the future. If you live in a wildland-urban interface, the zone between unoccupied and developed land, sooner or later fire will happen. Fortunately you can prepare for the worst, and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. This highly detailed and practical reference guide will help you live more safely in the red zone and save you time and money along the way, providing multiple methods of risk mitigation along with the financial level of each action. Effectively prepping your land can even enhance the scenery and increase the value of your home. Learn how wildfires begin and behave, how to evaluate your property, what essential tools you’ll need and what they will cost, how to prepare your land and home—including tips on how to avoid insurance nightmares—when to stay and fight, when it’s time to evacuate, how to clean up after a fire event, and more. Even if you live in the middle of a suburb, the information on how fires start and spread and how to deal with insurance claims will prove enlightening and helpful. No one can guarantee that your house or land will survive if a major conflagration erupts, but you can greatly improve your odds with this book and a little preparation.

Wildfires are getting more severe, with more acres and houses burned and more people at risk. This results from excess biomass in the forests, due to past logging and grazing and a century of fire suppression, combined with an expanding wildland-urban interface—more people and houses in and near the forests—and climate change, exacerbating drought and insect and disease problems. Some assert that current efforts to protect houses and to reduce biomass (through fuel treatments, such as thinning) are inadequate, and that public objections to some of these activities on federal lands raise costs and delay action. Others counter that proposals for federal lands allow timber harvesting with substantial environmental damage and little fire protection. Congress is addressing these issues through various legislative proposals and through funding for protection programs. Wildfires are inevitable—biomass, dry conditions, and lightning create fires. Some are surface fires, which burn needles, grasses, and other fine fuels and leave most trees alive. Others are crown fires, which are typically driven by high winds and burn biomass at all levels from the ground through the tree tops. Many wildfires contain areas of both surface and crown fires. Surface fires are relatively easy to control, but crown fires are difficult, if not impossible, to stop; often, crown fires burn until they run out of fuel or the weather changes. Homes can be ignited by direct contact with fire, by radiative heating, and by firebrands (burning materials lifted by the wind or the fire's own convection column). Protection of homes must address all three. Research has identified the keys to protecting structures: having a nonflammable roof; clearing burnable materials that abut the house (e.g., plants, flammable mulch, woodpiles, wooden decks); and landscaping to create a defensible space around the structure. Wildland and resource damages from fire vary widely, depending on the nature of the ecosystem as well as on site-specific conditions. Surface fire ecosystems, which burn on 5- to 35-year cycles, can be damaged by crown fires due to unnatural fuel accumulations and fuel ladders (small trees and dense undergrowth); fuel treatments probably prevent some crown fires in such ecosystems. Stand-replacement fire ecosystems are those where crown fires are natural and the species are adapted to periodic crown fires; fuel treatments are unlikely to alter the historic fire regime of such ecosystems. In mixed-intensity fire ecosystems, where a mix of surface and crown fires is historically normal, it is unclear whether fuel treatments would alter wildfire patterns. Prescribed burning (intentional fires) and mechanical treatments (cutting and removing some trees) can reduce resource damages caused by wildfires in some ecosystems. However, prescribed fires are risky, mechanical treatments can cause other ecological damages, and both are expensive. Proponents of more treatment advocate expedited processes for environmental and public review of projects to hasten action and cut costs, but others caution that inadequate review can allow unintended damages with few fire protection benefits.

"Covers what to do before, during, and after wildfire disasters. Advice for homeowners includes advance preparations for land, home and family; evacuation essentials and survival strategies when wildfire threatens; understanding insurance; and rebuilding and recovery"--