Our fire abatement services remove excessive growth of brush, shrubs, and weeds, create fire breaks, chip lumber that’s chopped down, and haul away removed overgrowth, deadwood, and debris.
CCFD Fire Marshal Michael Wilkinson said in a news release.
Cutting down invasive grass helps, but residents should create defensible space to further safeguard their homes.
“A defensible space is a natural and/or landscaped area around a structure that has been maintained and designed to reduce fire danger,” said Wilkinson.
He described defensible space as having three components. The first is a 5-foot noncombustible zone.
“This area needs to have a very low potential for ignition from flying embers. Use irrigated herbaceous plants (lawn, ground cover and flowers), rock mulches or hard surfaces (concrete, brick and pavers) in this area,” Wilkinson said.
The second part is a “lean, clean and green area.”
“For a distance of at least 30 feet from the home, there should be a lean, clean and green area,” said Wilkinson. “Lean indicates that only a small amount of flammable vegetation, if any, is present. Clean means no accumulation of dead vegetation or flammable debris within the area. Green denotes that plants located within this area are kept healthy, green and irrigated during fire season.”
The last part of defensible space is the wildland fuel reduction area.
“This area usually lies beyond the residential landscape area and is where cheatgrass, sagebrush, bitterbrush and other wild plants grow,” said Wilkinson.
He listed three steps for this area: removing dead vegetation; thinning out thick shrubs and trees; and preventing ladder fuels by removing low tree branches and removing or pruning any shrubs under trees.