House in the woods and Fire....

[dmccarty]

MotorSeven,

I worry about fire and I have a good 100 feet cleared around most of the house. We also bought a DR mower to help thin out the underbrush.

However what worries me most about trees is not fire but the trees falling. After going through a few hurricanes over the last decade or so and seeing trees getting knocked down in windstorms I'm far more worried about falling trees than fire. My fire wood supply for next season is a group of four threes that went down in a very localized wind event. Two of the trees are 24+ inches in diameter at the stump. We just a had a bad storm a week or two back that went mostly to my east. I can see a couple of trees that broke in half 6-8 feet up the tree. The trees look like they are a good 24+ inches in diameter.

When we built the house I flagged about an acre to get cleared for the house. The wife approved. Then I drove her back after the clearing was done. I knew she would be upset. Is how she looked when I drove into the house site. After I showed her how the house would sit in the site she wanted more trees removed.

I wish I had done it.

I had long wanted an indoor sprinkler system. When I first read up on them it would have been almost impossible to put on in our home. But the code changed and it became possible to put a system in the house. The best I could tell it would cost me $1-2 per sf. $2,500 to $5,000 total. Alot of money but I thought it would be worth the money. I called up the insurance company to see how much it would save us off our premimum. The premium then was not quite $1,000 year. I think it would have save us $50 year. That told me the odds of our house burning down ain't that high.

Later,
Dan

 

[Pilot]

In that cleared area around your house, that does not mean removing the trees & shrubs. What it means is removing all the fuel--all the litter on the forest floor. Rake it clean every year so there is nothing there that will burn.

Also, prune all the trees to a height of 8 feet or so--frankly, I don't remember how high your should prune, but you can reach to 8 ft. with loppers, which may be a practical limit. This will keep any fire out of the crown, especially if you have cleared all the ground fuel.

Out in the west, no fires in anyone's memory is a BAD thing. It means more fuel accumulation on the forest floor and a worse fire when it happens. A better indication may be the species of trees you have. Out here we have some species which are highly fire dependent, meaning that without fires, they don't reproduce very well and that they have adapted genetically to frequent fires. If you have species which are not very fire dependent, that may be an indication of low fire probability.

Lastly, clean your gutters. Embers land in gutters & ignite the dry litter that has accumlated there which in turn ignites the roof or the wood supporting it. Metal roofs are a good start, but the wood under them can burn.

 

[RobertN]

There are a couple places you can look and check out. One, is your local Master Gardeners, the other if your state Forestry dept.

Out here, our county Master Gardeners have lots of information on fire safe gardening, plant optins ect. CDF(Calif dept of Forestry) has information also, especially after all the souther California fires of the last couple years.

http://www.fire.ca.gov/php/education_100foot.php
http://mastergardeners.tennessee.edu/

 

[RonMar]

As Pilot said, get the combustible material off the ground and prune all the lower(usually dead) branches off all the trees. I go as far up as I can reach easilly. I have a lot of Ceder on my land and their branches tend to droop so to get their green highly flamable branches 8 feet off the ground, I sometimes have to cut 12' or more up the trunk. The farther you do this out from your house, the better. I also thin out the trees, my rule of thumb is no trees closer to one another than 6' which allows me to get my tractor to most areas as I use a landscape rake to more easilly collect the combustibles and the branches I have trimmed. In doing so, I have come across evidence of past fire. If it can do it once, it can certainly do it again.

There are basically 2 modes for the fire to be in. The first is a ground fire, burning the built up material on the ground and moveing in the direction the wind is blowing. As some mentioned, not having a fire in a long time is a bad thing as the material builds up on the ground and can provide a lot of heat when burnt. The second mode is a top fire where the trees burn from top to top. Unfortunatly burning material falls downward(if heavy enough, more on this later) and will ignite more of the material on the ground. A full blown forest fire will be in both modes at the same time, the lower fire feeding and enhancing the upper.

Fire goes with the wind. Fire also makes it own wind as air is drawn in at the base, is superheated and rises. If the material burning on the forest floor can generate enough heat to ignite the lower branches and bark of the trees, then the fire spreads up to the top where burning branches that are heavy enough to fall against the rising airflow help to ignite more of the forest floor. A top fire will of course kill the tree but they do not usually fall during the fire. A very hot ground fire can burn thru the bark and ignite the pitch and continue to burn the trunk weakening it. A top fire will typically not spread as easilly unless winds are high and roads/firebreaks can help to halt it. The way fire usually jumps these barriers is to ignite ground material and work it's way back up into the tops on the other side of the break Regular fire in the forest keeps the ground buildup down and this lesser material won't burn hot enough to ignite the upper portions of the trees and the fire will burn on thru without killing much of the forest. The best way to help protect your land and home is to break this ground to top cycle.

I don't know how much property you own but if you are worried about fire, I would remove as much of the burnable material from the ground and lower tree trunks for as far back from the building site as possible. This will also enhance your view back into the woods.

As for a fire blanket, they do exist, they are just in a liquid form consisting of water and AFFF(Aquious film forming foam). I have heard of systems that operate automatically from a cistern tank with a gas powered electric start(battery) pump. They are activated automatically from IR heat detectors as the fire approaches. The pump starts and rooftop and under eve sprinkler heads spray the surfaces of the building with water mixed with foam. The water/foam returns to the cistern via eve and foundation gutters where the water is recycled back to the pump. The cistern is kept full either thru rainfall or via a domestic water feed. Excess water overflows and is drained away like traditional rainfall.

 

[dfkrug]

Fire is a big concern here in the Santa Cruz Mtns. My house's exterior
walls are concrete (ICF) with 1" conventional stucco finish. I have a
Class A roof and metal rolling shutters on ground floor windows. The
county REQUIRED interior fire sprinklers and a 5000 gallon water tank
connected to a 4" main and my own wharf hydrant. The fire engine
can suck that tank dry in seconds. I have 74 psi head pressure from
the tank. The CDF station is only 3 miles from here and they have
a Huey fire helicopter.

First thing: no grasses! We get 100 days of no rain in the
summer and dead grass is an invitation for disaster. Fire-resistant
vegetation? You bet! I have giant redwood trees and I would love
to get ice plant to grow. It hates the rare frosts we get at 1800'
elevation.

I am 500 ft from the San Andreas fault and earthquakes are less of
a concern vs fire. I don't understand how some neighbors will live
in tinder box houses......

 

[cisco]

A major fire, like a Category 5 hurricane, is going to have its' way. Short of that sort of challenge, you seem to be onto all the right things. First is fire insurance. My country "garage/apartment" has an aluminum roof, hardiplank on the upper floor and cinderblock (covered with concrete based stucco) on the lower floor. All exposed wood is sheathed with aluminum. There's a gravel ground covering about 6 feet out from all sides except for the concrete apron in front of the garage. The doors are metal. I bush hogged the underbrush for a couple of hundred feet on all sides, and trimmed back trees (taking out large ones that could fall on the dwelling).
I've a well, and generator back-up.
Still, with a major fire - it's all toast.
PS - I've also built to 150 mph hurricane specs, but ----- hurricane Hugo in 1989 put 175 mph winds and 22 feet of sea water across the coast where my property is located. So, build right, and well, and have insurance, and then ---- have a back-up plan (for me, a condo in the North Carolina mountains seems about right).

 

[Pilot]

By far, most fires are ground fires. Unless you have highly flammable species of trees in your area, it takes preheating and drying for much of a crown to catch. This can happen where a fire works it's way up a hill or where there is a good wind behind it.

Building with a metal roof, cleaning the gutters & removing the ground fuels & ladder fuels (pruning) will prevent crown fires in all but the worst conditions. Protection measures in the chapparell country in California need to be much more extensive than in New York. What's reasonable in California may be crazy in New York.

Ask your local fire prevention people about the probability of crown fires in your area & what you could reasonably do to protect your property.

 

[ByronBob]

It seems a fire would be in the relm of a 100 yr flood. Could happen but the odds are low. Also, the fires out west thrive on kindling on the ground to spread. I would think thinning of the low lying material would help most.

Another thing you could do is get some water storage like a cistern for a large water volume in an emergency.

 

[MotorSeven]

WOW, thanks for all the great ideas, that's what i love about TBN!! The ridge top i will be on has only a carpet of leaves which can be easily cleaned. Once the ground is exposed i will look into fire retarding vegitation. I have already planned on cleaning out the smaller trees leaving only a few large ones within reach of the house. I like the idea of some type of foam system, so i will research that. There will be no mortgage on the house, so insurance is optional. I may opt to spend that money on a walk-in safe/safe room, security system and a foam system. I have kinda gotten a bad taste in my mouth ref these insurance companies here in FL, as alot of my friends are still without their roof checks 8 months after WIlma....don't even mention New Orleans . In this day and age, i am not comfortable being dependant on Insurance or our Govt to help me out in the case of a large scale disaster. I am not trying to "spark" anything, just a reality check may be in order for alot of folks(me) that thought things would/could have been handled differently in '05.
RD