Nevada Wildfire Awareness Week is just ending. This year's slogan was "Be Ember Aware " Will Your House Survive When the Embers Arrive?" Look around your landscape and ask yourself, "would my house survive a wildfire?"
If you have junipers and other flammable plants such as arborvitae next to your house, your home is at a greater risk of an ember-caused fire than if you do not. Areas of continuous plants such as sagebrush, bitterbrush, rabbitbrush, junipers or other flammable plants are also more likely to burn with greater intensity and speed than areas where plants have a separation of at least two times the height of the shrubs. Crown fires, with their capacity to throw burning embers for miles, are a high risk when ladder fuels lead from low-lying flammable plants into the branches of trees.
A homeowner has myriad plant choices. Do you pick less flammable plants within your defensible space zone? Less flammable plants are those that are deciduous (lose their leaves) rather than evergreen; shorter (less than 2 feet) rather than taller; herbaceous (flowers and such) rather than woody; and do not contain flammable resins and oils as most native plants and evergreens do. The size of the defensible space zone ranges from a minimum of 30 feet on a flat slope to 200 feet on a steep south- or west-facing slope with dense flammable vegetation.
We live in a high wildfire hazard environment. It is never a question of if a fire will happen; it's always a question of when and where the next fire will be. Here are suggestions to reduce the risk of a fire destroying your home:
Keep an ignition-free zone within 3 feet of the house. Use inorganic rock mulches rather than bark chips, pine needles, shredded cedar mulch and the like. Do not use rubber mulches as they are highly flammable. Plant only short herbaceous plants here. Never store firewood in this zone.
Create and maintain a defensible space zone with widely spaced less flammable plants. To find out the size of defensible space zone that you should have go to www.livingwithfire.info
Keep the landscape green during fire season. Keep all areas clean of plant litter and dead limbs.
For a free copy of a full-color plant guide of less flammable and water-efficient plants, see "Choosing the Right Plants for Northern Nevada's High Fire Hazard Environments" at www.livingwithfire.info or call me, 887-2252.
JoAnne Skelly is the Carson City/Storey County Extension educator for University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.
