Guard your property against wildfires
Fire is a powerful part of Florida's landscape. It can maintain healthy natural ecosystems, but can also turn a home to ashes. Florida's frequent lightning strikes and human carelessness guarantee that fire will continue to be a factor in rural and suburban areas. Here are proven actions you can take to reduce wildfire severity and to increase the chances your home and property can survive a wildfire.
Create a defensible space around your home. Trim lower branches up to ten feet on tall trees, remove vines from trees, and keep shrubbery away from pine trees so that a fire on the ground cannot climb up these fuel ladders to the treetops.
Landscape your defensible space to make it difficult for fire to spread to your house. Use shrub islands or patches of perennials rather than continuous beds of plantings. Thins trees so branches do not touch each other.
Keep combustible items like wood piles, fire wood, compost piles, gas grills, gas cans, and propane tanks at least 30 feet away from your house. Clear away dead vegetation, pine needles and branches.
Keep grass mowed. Use gravel walkways, and mulched plantings near your home. Mulch keeps the ground moist, making it difficult for a fire to reach your home. Do not use thick combustible mulch near your home.
Keep large, leafy hardwood trees in your yard, particularly on the east and west sides of your house. Their shade is important to cool your house, and the flat leaves trap moisture on the ground. Trim lower branches and rake up pine needles.
Make it easy for fire service vehicles to get to your house. Clearly label street name and house number with metal signs and posts. Make sure the driveway has a 16-foot clearance of vegetation, and create a 30-foot-wide space around your home for fire trucks to maneuver.
Remove flammable plants like saw palmetto, wax myrtle, yaupon holly, red cedar, and gallberry within 30 feet of your home. They contain resins, oils, and waxes that burn readily. Many other plants are not as flammable.
Less-flammable plants include dogwood, virburnum, redbud, sycamore, magnolia, beautyberry, oak, red maple, wild azalea, sweetgum, coontie, winged elm, black cherry, persimmon, wild plum, sugarberry, Florida soapberry, fringetree, ferns, wild olive, blue beech, hophornbeam and sparkleberry.
How fire-proof is your home? Siding, soffit vents, and roofing should be made with heat-resistant materials. Keep the roof clear of pine needles, and trim branches so they don't hang over the roof. Make sure your chimney has a spark/ember arrester.
If there is no hydrant system in your neighborhood, provide an emergency water supply for fire fighters, such as a swimming pool, pond, lake or cistern. Keep 100 feet of hose on hand to stop small fires from spreading.
For more information, contact your county Forest Area Supervisor of the Florida Division of Forestry or Bob Rhea, Wildfire Mitigation Specialist, Florida Division of Forestry, (850)872-7393, or log on to http://flame.doacs.state.fl.us OR http://www.firewise.org/communities
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