D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
February 2012
Good Neighbors
The Fire Next Time
Gary Benavidez, Grant County fire management officer, shows how to create "defensible space" around your home to protect it from wildfires.
by Harry Williamson
I wasn't too worried about my Grant County house burning down until a neighbor referred to it as "toast."
"Yeah, if we get a wildfire coming through here, nothing could save us," she said. "We'd both be goners.
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Gary Benavidez, Grant County fire management officer, is available to assist individual homeowners and neighborhood groups in preparing homes and their surroundings for wildfires. (Photos by Harry Williamson) |
"Just toast, you and me," she added, with a chuckle.
It was during the autumn of 2009, and a few months after I had moved into my small, traditional adobe home in Arenas Valley, near what is locally known as Maude's Canyon. I have slightly more than seven acres that ease down into a small valley where the house and a couple of other buildings are located. The land is packed with junipers, piñons and scrub oak, along with various shrubs and grasses, lots of mountain mahogany and bear grass, plus the usual chollas and prickly pears. A mostly dry arroyo runs on the property's west side, where copses of junipers and oaks are sprinkled amongst the decaying corpses of five gigantic cottonwoods that have crashed down over the years
All in all, to me, my property is a beautiful high desert mix, gritty and fine and uncompromising.
At least it was until I heard the "toast" comment.
I recently read a scholarly article entitled, "Thinking of Wildfire as a Natural Hazard," which, in some wonderment, poses the question, "How can people move into high fire-hazard areas and not see the danger?"
Ahem.
Until recently I thought "defensible space" was a football term, and "firebrands" referred to Tea Party politicians.
I also read another equally scholarly journal article that identified the 15 most common excuses that owners give for not making their homes safer from wildfires. In the months following the "toast" comment I used all 15 at one time or another, ranging from denial, futility and inability, to aesthetics, discomfort, illegality and a Buddhist tendency not to cut down trees, which is odd considering I'm not Buddhist.
Anyway, these excuses ended on the afternoon of March 8, 2011, the moment the fire truck sirens signaled the Quail Ridge Fire south of Silver City.
Along with thousands of others I realized it could indeed happen here and it could happen on my land.
A deep despair followed.
In last October's Desert Exposure, I had an article on what neighborhood associations and fire officials were doing to prepare for the area's next wildfire. Included among those interviews was one with Gary Benavidez, Grant County fire management officer, who agreed to visit my property and use it as an illustration of what owners should be doing to better protect their homes.
As soon as we pull off the road onto my long, curving driveway, Benavidez's facial muscle begin to tighten. "My, you do have some work to do here," he says through tight lips.
We clump around through the dense trees. After several heavy sighs and headshakes, Benavides first talks about moving the stacks of firewood to another spot 30 feet away from the house.
"Imagine what embers would do falling in that dry, seasoned wood," he says.
He points to several stands of tall grass not 10 feet away from the house. "A little bit of wind on grass like that can create flames 8 to 10 feet high," he says. "Grass and embers are big culprits in wildfire house fires."
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Benavidez studies a hodgepodge of growth before offering suggestions on creating defensible/survivable space. |
We walk to the west side near the arroyo, where trees lean this way and that searching for sunlight. Benavidez steps into the pocket of a wildly overgrown clump.
"You need to take some out and trim others. That's a pretty little tree," he says, pointing at one. "I would take that other juniper out. Trim that piñon. Leave this one alone. Already you've opened up some space, and there are less nutrients going to ugly places."
He adds that the rule of thumb is to have at least 10 feet between the tips of the longest limb of trees and bushes.
Benavidez starts by identifying the diseased plants, trees with heavy doses of mistletoe or whose growth has been stunted by competition with others. Get rid of them. Then he goes for aesthetics, not park-like with everything the same distance apart, but what looks pleasing to the eye.
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Once defensible space work is underway, shown here from approximately the same spot, the intent is to drop the fire lower to the ground, thereby reducing flames and the resulting embers. |
"What you want to do is break up the continuous fuels, which is when vegetation is touching other vegetation," he says. "You can have clumps of vegetation and separate the clumps or you can do it individually, however you want to do it to make it look good."
He says the overall intent is to encourage the fire to drop down to the ground where the grass has been cut and needles, leaves and other debris raked up. "That's what you're doing with defensible or survivable space. You're taking the fire from the heavy fuels down to the fine fuels, those less than one-quarter inch in diameter where the embers carry less heat."
Benavidez stops walking and turns around with a smile. "And you don't have to be a maniac with the chainsaw. Do it in stages."
Asked how far this defensible space should extend from the house, he says a minimum of 30 feet, although fire history has shown that 50 or 100 feet is better. "To me, the optimum would be 100 feet," he adds.
Creating this space around the home is, however, only one part of the fire safety puzzle. The other piece is the house itself.
Benavidez says, "The homeowner needs to focus on two things: the fuel immediately surrounding the home, and then the home itself. You can't do one without the other and expect success. They have to go hand in hand."
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