A couple of days ago I wrote about our CA house being on the fringes of the Camp fire that destroyed Paradise, CA, while not being damaged. That outcome wasn’t entirely a matter of good luck, considerable planning on our part was also involved.
When we built the house in 1987, we knew it would be exposed to grassfires, if not forest fires, since it was built atop a small hill on what was formerly permanent pasture. And we knew we would be gone much of the summer - only part of the fire season which in that part of CA stretches well into autumn. Significant rains normally don’t occur before late November.
Understanding the inherent risk we chose materials and landscaping that were fire-resistant. The house was stucco and the roof was tile, both are not flammable. We surrounded the house with a concrete walkway which everywhere was four feet wide, and was 12 ft. wide along one side. So no plants or shrubbery were alongside the house.
Then the entire house/garage complex was surrounded by some irrigated landscaping beyond which was a bare ring perhaps 20’ wide. “Bare” meaning it was sprayed to kill everything once a year, and treated with pre-emergent herbicide to prevent sprouting.
Since we had nearly 12 acres, the property perimeter was also plowed once a year to make a further firebreak. And our nearly 1/4 mile gravel driveway winding up to our hilltop was additional protection.
We had a large RV barn on the property which was of metal construction and roof, not flammable. It too was surrounded by a graveled drive.
The Camp fire burned off our grassland, and some landscaping embedded therein, and while that landscaping was killed by it, the grassland regenerated with the winter rains and a year later looked very similar to its appearance a year earlier. CA native plants are accustomed to fires and mostly survive them with some temporary damage.
Bottom line, our damage was minimal and that was true in some large part to our awareness of, and hedging against, the eventuality of wildfire.
