|
Steve,
Maybe you (or somebody you know) could answer this
question. Whatever happened to Defensible Space?
"An area either natural or manmade where material
capable of causing a fire to spread has been treated, cleared, reduced, or
changed to act as a barrier between an advancing wildland fire and the loss to
life, property, or resources. In practice, "defensible space" is defined as an
area a minimum of 30 feet around a structure that is cleared of flammable brush
or vegetation."
I don't hear Defensible Space talked
about anymore. When the news reports that homes were burned down, why don't they
include in the report that the homes were fire-trap homes without Defensible
Space?
I googled this: "Defensible Space"
And got a half million results, so its not like its
difficult to find info on it. Browsing thru the images for this search shows
some great pictures of intact homes surrounded by Defensible Space and burnt out
areas. There were also some pictures of fire-trap homes that will be goners
if a fire ever comes near them.
To me, for a person who is living in wildfire
country, not doing defensible space is as irresponsible as a person doing drunk
driving when they have to close one eye to reduce the number of images they are
seeing.
Defensible Space is a wide spectrum of levels of
preparation. Every bit of preparation decreases the risk of structure loss due
to wildfire. As long as you haven't evacuated, its never to late to get out the
rake and pruners and start reducing the flammable vegetation near your
buildings. From a firefighters perspective, you can ever have too much
Defensible Space.
When there aren't any other options for quickly
getting rid of flammable debris, stack them up in small dense stacks out in the
open, with wide spaces between the stacks. This way when a fire comes thru the
stacks will burn more slowly than the standing grass and brush would have
burnt. This in turn will minimize the size and intensity of the wall
of flame, and so the small stacks are less likely to ignite tress and
buildings than freestanding brush and grass would.
During a red flag warning is the wrong time to use
mowers with steel blades because if the blade hits a rock, then the sparks could
start a fire. However using a grass cutting machine with a plastic filament,
instead of steel blades, (and a spark arresting muffler) seems reasonable to
me.
Even so, after using a gas powered weedeater you
would need to do a fire watch, just in case the fire smoldered for a while
before breaking into flames.
* * * *
Everybody seems so shocked when fire-trap homes
burn down, when that is to be expected when the home is in the Wildland Urban
Interface in wildfire country. This is especially so when its nearly impossible
in most locations to get permission for prescribed fires to lower the fuel load
before fire season starts.
I agree 100% with fire fighters doing triage and
not risking their lives trying to save fire-trap homes during major fire events.
If it was you, would you spend a lot of effort trying to save a building that
will probably burn down anyway, which is dangerous to be working on when the
fire is close by, or spend a moderate amount of effort working on a home you can
almost guarantee will be saved, which has enough defensible space so that if the
fire suddenly surges forwards, that defensible space will help save your
life?
My health does better when I'm in an area where
ponderosa pines are growing. They don't grow where I live now. In the last
10 years every single place I was thinking of moving to in WA, OR, and CA has
been burned out. This is in addition to those locations having months of air
pollution levels from smoke that would make me nonfunctional because I'd be so
sick. Maybe the smoke would have killed me. At this point, even if I had
a large windfall, I doubt I'd move to a dry area. Living in the Douglas
fir/live oak transition zone seems like a reasonable compromise between health
and flammability (for now).
* * * *
I used to think that living west of the Cascades
meant not having to pay attention to Defensible Space. Now I'm seriously
questioning that attitude because I'm a bit shocked at the amount of large fires
west of the Cascades.
This year this seems to be the most useful tool for
tracking wildfires:
When its overloaded, it returns the map, but no
fire details, which is usual for "public services" provided by federal
agencies. Sometimes during off hours, when many people are panicking, if
you wait for a long time, the fire details eventually show up. If there are only
small fires, away from densely populated areas, then this
page responds very quickly with fire details.
In the last 3 days there have been 4 wildfires near
my home that were large enough that they showed up on satellite fire detection
systems. This year seems to be on track for a
record setting year for wildfires on the west coast. Worse yet, the definition
of a "big fire" is steadily getting bigger.
This gets back to wondering why there seems to be
deafening silence about Defensible Space.
* * * *
As I waited on the draft for second thoughts, an interesting idea came to
me.
For people too elderly to do firefighting, the next best thing would be to
load up some pruning and yard work tools, and drive around helping people who
are making desperate efforts at last minute creation of Defensible Space. An
advantage of helping at this point would be few people would care about
doing a neat job, so it would be really easy to do this kind of work.
One of the images in my mind, from when I was a young adult, was a carload
of ladies who spent their time driving around and helping the old ladies. What
makes this image stick in my mind was one woman was considerably younger than
the others in the car, and she was in her 60's. One can only imagine how
old the old ladies were that they were helping.
A similar activity would be driving around and helping the old duffers
clear Defensible Space around their homes.
Helping somebody save their home would give some serious meaning and
satisfaction to life.
* * * *
If you are spending time anywhere near a fire, you need some basic safety
equipment and fire safety education.
Since a fire can spread faster than 5 mph, "near" depends on the current
weather conditions.
It would be very sad if some volunteers, helping people create Defensible
Space around their homes, got burned up because of an unexpected change in the
weather.
I ordered a lot of my equipment for working in the woods and for
wildfire safety from this place:
I was happy with their service and products. However I haven't ordered from
them since 2009. I glanced at their website and they are still very serious
about forestry and wildfires.
There aren't a whole lot of places, even on the internet, where you can buy
this kind of equipment. Considering the hazards of working in the woods, I would
only buy this kind of equipment from a place that specializes in selling
forestry equipment to people who use it to earn their living.
This is the 4th edition of this book:
I have the 3rd edition and it was very useful when I was working in the
woods during the dry season. While there is a lot of info on managing hundreds
of firefighters, there is also a lot of useful info on Defensible Space and good
safety practices for anybody anywhere near a wildfire. Some people might think
the book is too expensive. For perspective, how much do you spend on insurance
each year? How much is your home worth? How much is your life worth? I see this
book as inexpensive insurance.
Fires can spread dozens of miles a day and trap even professional
firefighters. Its very easy to accidentally start a fire, you can
be held liable for any damage caused by any fires you accidentally start,
and in most weather conditions in most environments, if you have the equipment
on hand a few feet away from you, then you can put out a small fire before it
spreads. In short, its better to be prepared than to be sorry you
weren't.
The good practices aren't rocket science, so they are easy to practice,
once you know about them. For instance, somebody needs to be designated to watch
the weather behavior, and if you can see it, the fire behavior. Then if there
are any ominous changes in behavior, immediately tell the rest of the team about
it. Its easy to become preoccupied doing a task, and not notice changes in the
weather until its too late. Having a designated watcher reduces the risk of
being trapped by a fire. The watcher can also watch for fires started from tools
striking rocks and creating sparks, and then alert the team while the fire is
still small enough to be easily put out.
Sincerely,
Roger
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2020 6:11
AM
Subject: Re: [oregoncoots] Fires and
such
My son in law was one of the Eugene firemen trapped yesterday up
by Blue River surrounded by the fire. Pretty scary day. They had
no radio since the towers had burned. And too windy to fly helicopters
in to them. My daughter got a call from a department Captain.
The call she dreads. She was sure he was dead. All of them
are now safe. Other crews had to clear 25 miles of down trees, burned
trees and power lines to get the firemen and sheriff deputies out.
He said they saved the school and a few houses but everything
else is gone in Blue River. Please send any extra prayers to the firemen
and folks who have lost so much.
Steve Miller
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|
I am certainly not qualified to address all your points Roger. I do hear about it east of the mountains. Like you said where ponderosa grows.
I have seen stories on This Old House on PBS about using the correct materials to build your house and how much that can lessen the danger.
There are products, foams I think, that you can use to pre treat your home before you flee.
But with east winds and a very dry summer stuff burns.
Not sure why the power companies up Santiam Canyon and up the McKenzie did not cut power like they did up MtnHood above Sandy. Maybe they did but I did not hear about it.
Scary stuff.
Steve Miller
On Wed, Sep 9, 2020, 5:29 PM Roger Padvorac < roger@...> wrote:
Steve,
Maybe you (or somebody you know) could answer this
question. Whatever happened to Defensible Space?
"An area either natural or manmade where material
capable of causing a fire to spread has been treated, cleared, reduced, or
changed to act as a barrier between an advancing wildland fire and the loss to
life, property, or resources. In practice, "defensible space" is defined as an
area a minimum of 30 feet around a structure that is cleared of flammable brush
or vegetation."
I don't hear Defensible Space talked
about anymore. When the news reports that homes were burned down, why don't they
include in the report that the homes were fire-trap homes without Defensible
Space?
I googled this: "Defensible Space"
And got a half million results, so its not like its
difficult to find info on it. Browsing thru the images for this search shows
some great pictures of intact homes surrounded by Defensible Space and burnt out
areas. There were also some pictures of fire-trap homes that will be goners
if a fire ever comes near them.
To me, for a person who is living in wildfire
country, not doing defensible space is as irresponsible as a person doing drunk
driving when they have to close one eye to reduce the number of images they are
seeing.
Defensible Space is a wide spectrum of levels of
preparation. Every bit of preparation decreases the risk of structure loss due
to wildfire. As long as you haven't evacuated, its never to late to get out the
rake and pruners and start reducing the flammable vegetation near your
buildings. From a firefighters perspective, you can ever have too much
Defensible Space.
When there aren't any other options for quickly
getting rid of flammable debris, stack them up in small dense stacks out in the
open, with wide spaces between the stacks. This way when a fire comes thru the
stacks will burn more slowly than the standing grass and brush would have
burnt. This in turn will minimize the size and intensity of the wall
of flame, and so the small stacks are less likely to ignite tress and
buildings than freestanding brush and grass would.
During a red flag warning is the wrong time to use
mowers with steel blades because if the blade hits a rock, then the sparks could
start a fire. However using a grass cutting machine with a plastic filament,
instead of steel blades, (and a spark arresting muffler) seems reasonable to
me.
Even so, after using a gas powered weedeater you
would need to do a fire watch, just in case the fire smoldered for a while
before breaking into flames.
* * * *
Everybody seems so shocked when fire-trap homes
burn down, when that is to be expected when the home is in the Wildland Urban
Interface in wildfire country. This is especially so when its nearly impossible
in most locations to get permission for prescribed fires to lower the fuel load
before fire season starts.
I agree 100% with fire fighters doing triage and
not risking their lives trying to save fire-trap homes during major fire events.
If it was you, would you spend a lot of effort trying to save a building that
will probably burn down anyway, which is dangerous to be working on when the
fire is close by, or spend a moderate amount of effort working on a home you can
almost guarantee will be saved, which has enough defensible space so that if the
fire suddenly surges forwards, that defensible space will help save your
life?
My health does better when I'm in an area where
ponderosa pines are growing. They don't grow where I live now. In the last
10 years every single place I was thinking of moving to in WA, OR, and CA has
been burned out. This is in addition to those locations having months of air
pollution levels from smoke that would make me nonfunctional because I'd be so
sick. Maybe the smoke would have killed me. At this point, even if I had
a large windfall, I doubt I'd move to a dry area. Living in the Douglas
fir/live oak transition zone seems like a reasonable compromise between health
and flammability (for now).
* * * *
I used to think that living west of the Cascades
meant not having to pay attention to Defensible Space. Now I'm seriously
questioning that attitude because I'm a bit shocked at the amount of large fires
west of the Cascades.
This year this seems to be the most useful tool for
tracking wildfires:
When its overloaded, it returns the map, but no
fire details, which is usual for "public services" provided by federal
agencies. Sometimes during off hours, when many people are panicking, if
you wait for a long time, the fire details eventually show up. If there are only
small fires, away from densely populated areas, then this
page responds very quickly with fire details.
In the last 3 days there have been 4 wildfires near
my home that were large enough that they showed up on satellite fire detection
systems. This year seems to be on track for a
record setting year for wildfires on the west coast. Worse yet, the definition
of a "big fire" is steadily getting bigger.
This gets back to wondering why there seems to be
deafening silence about Defensible Space.
* * * *
As I waited on the draft for second thoughts, an interesting idea came to
me.
For people too elderly to do firefighting, the next best thing would be to
load up some pruning and yard work tools, and drive around helping people who
are making desperate efforts at last minute creation of Defensible Space. An
advantage of helping at this point would be few people would care about
doing a neat job, so it would be really easy to do this kind of work.
One of the images in my mind, from when I was a young adult, was a carload
of ladies who spent their time driving around and helping the old ladies. What
makes this image stick in my mind was one woman was considerably younger than
the others in the car, and she was in her 60's. One can only imagine how
old the old ladies were that they were helping.
A similar activity would be driving around and helping the old duffers
clear Defensible Space around their homes.
Helping somebody save their home would give some serious meaning and
satisfaction to life.
* * * *
If you are spending time anywhere near a fire, you need some basic safety
equipment and fire safety education.
Since a fire can spread faster than 5 mph, "near" depends on the current
weather conditions.
It would be very sad if some volunteers, helping people create Defensible
Space around their homes, got burned up because of an unexpected change in the
weather.
I ordered a lot of my equipment for working in the woods and for
wildfire safety from this place:
I was happy with their service and products. However I haven't ordered from
them since 2009. I glanced at their website and they are still very serious
about forestry and wildfires.
There aren't a whole lot of places, even on the internet, where you can buy
this kind of equipment. Considering the hazards of working in the woods, I would
only buy this kind of equipment from a place that specializes in selling
forestry equipment to people who use it to earn their living.
This is the 4th edition of this book:
I have the 3rd edition and it was very useful when I was working in the
woods during the dry season. While there is a lot of info on managing hundreds
of firefighters, there is also a lot of useful info on Defensible Space and good
safety practices for anybody anywhere near a wildfire. Some people might think
the book is too expensive. For perspective, how much do you spend on insurance
each year? How much is your home worth? How much is your life worth? I see this
book as inexpensive insurance.
Fires can spread dozens of miles a day and trap even professional
firefighters. Its very easy to accidentally start a fire, you can
be held liable for any damage caused by any fires you accidentally start,
and in most weather conditions in most environments, if you have the equipment
on hand a few feet away from you, then you can put out a small fire before it
spreads. In short, its better to be prepared than to be sorry you
weren't.
The good practices aren't rocket science, so they are easy to practice,
once you know about them. For instance, somebody needs to be designated to watch
the weather behavior, and if you can see it, the fire behavior. Then if there
are any ominous changes in behavior, immediately tell the rest of the team about
it. Its easy to become preoccupied doing a task, and not notice changes in the
weather until its too late. Having a designated watcher reduces the risk of
being trapped by a fire. The watcher can also watch for fires started from tools
striking rocks and creating sparks, and then alert the team while the fire is
still small enough to be easily put out.
Sincerely,
Roger
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2020 6:11
AM
Subject: Re: [oregoncoots] Fires and
such
My son in law was one of the Eugene firemen trapped yesterday up
by Blue River surrounded by the fire. Pretty scary day. They had
no radio since the towers had burned. And too windy to fly helicopters
in to them. My daughter got a call from a department Captain.
The call she dreads. She was sure he was dead. All of them
are now safe. Other crews had to clear 25 miles of down trees, burned
trees and power lines to get the firemen and sheriff deputies out.
He said they saved the school and a few houses but everything
else is gone in Blue River. Please send any extra prayers to the firemen
and folks who have lost so much.
Steve Miller
|
|
|
There has been a lot of attention given to promoting Defensible Space as the fire seasons get worse. There are volunteer programs that help people make their properties out in the country safer from wildfires, and the fire departments and fire protection districts do their best to help people make their homes safer. Forest fires that travel as fast as the McKenzie and Santiam canyon fires did don't care about defensible space. <sigh>
Historically there have been many, many big forest fires west of the Cascades -- remember the Tillamook Burn? -- so that's nothing new. Douglas fir is a fire dependent species. Before human meddling, they sprouted in burned over areas after the broadleaved brush had got a start, then after the Doug firs had matured western hemlock would start taking over the forest -- unless another big fire came through first...
The sort of firestorms that hit up the Santiam and McKenzie are something new, and scary. <sigh>
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
On 9/9/2020 5:28 PM, Roger P wrote:
Steve,
Maybe you (or somebody you know) could answer this question. Whatever happened to Defensible Space?
www.fs.fed.us/nwacfire/home/terminology.html <http://www.fs.fed.us/nwacfire/home/terminology.html>
Defensible Space:
"An area either natural or manmade where material capable of causing a fire to spread has been treated, cleared, reduced, or changed to act as a barrier between an advancing wildland fire and the loss to life, property, or resources. In practice, "defensible space" is defined as an area a minimum of 30 feet around a structure that is cleared of flammable brush or vegetation."
... -- John <jkohnen@boat-links.com> I know there's a proverb which that says "to err is human", but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries. (Agatha Christie)
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Defensible Space is promoted here heavily. Mainly spurred from the Awbrey Hall fire that ripped through the west side of Bend in 1990.
Most new subdivisions that build in more rural areas have to be a Firewise development which require special restrictions on building a fire safe structure, landscaping with firewise approved methods and planting and maintaining the landscape.
Having a defensible space and a properly built structure are very important to protecting your home.
Case
Sent from not here
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
On Sep 9, 2020, at 8:18 PM, John Kohnen <jkohnen@boat-links.com> wrote:
There has been a lot of attention given to promoting Defensible Space as the fire seasons get worse. There are volunteer programs that help people make their properties out in the country safer from wildfires, and the fire departments and fire protection districts do their best to help people make their homes safer. Forest fires that travel as fast as the McKenzie and Santiam canyon fires did don't care about defensible space. <sigh>
Historically there have been many, many big forest fires west of the Cascades -- remember the Tillamook Burn? -- so that's nothing new. Douglas fir is a fire dependent species. Before human meddling, they sprouted in burned over areas after the broadleaved brush had got a start, then after the Doug firs had matured western hemlock would start taking over the forest -- unless another big fire came through first...
The sort of firestorms that hit up the Santiam and McKenzie are something new, and scary. <sigh>
On 9/9/2020 5:28 PM, Roger P wrote:
Steve,
Maybe you (or somebody you know) could answer this question. Whatever happened to Defensible Space?
www.fs.fed.us/nwacfire/home/terminology.html <http://www.fs.fed.us/nwacfire/home/terminology.html>
Defensible Space:
"An area either natural or manmade where material capable of causing a fire to spread has been treated, cleared, reduced, or changed to act as a barrier between an advancing wildland fire and the loss to life, property, or resources. In practice, "defensible space" is defined as an area a minimum of 30 feet around a structure that is cleared of flammable brush or vegetation."
... --
John <jkohnen@boat-links.com>
I know there's a proverb which that says "to err is human", but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries. (Agatha Christie)
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com
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I lived in the woods for almost 50 years. I did all the defensible space rules and then some. No shrubs of any size within 20 feet of the house except for one Japanese maple, single specimen plants to 100 feet away, any tree except fruit
trees within 100 yards of a building got an 18 to 24 foot lift, mowed 3 acres of field, kept the logging roads open, etc. These are all great protection against a fire that is running across the ground. None of this helps much when a fire is jumping from tree
top to tree top in a 40mph downhill wind.
Please keep safe everybody.
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Steve,
Thanks for the info. I think many people, including
myself, developed a habitual attitude of we live on the soggy, wet side of the
mountains.
All of the finger pointing over the next several
months will go a long ways to raising awareness and starting to change that
attitude.
I read a depressing opinion essay to the point that
being decisively proactive after a disaster (and throwing lots of money at
it) gets politicians reelected, and spending money to prevent disasters
gets them unelected. Its so sad that human sacrifices are required to start that
cycle.
Yes, wildfires, like lots of things are scary,
until you learn the good practices and become religious about following
it.
I spent 4 years repairing electronic equipment that
used 5,000 volts. You had to energize it to be able to troubleshoot it. The only
accident in our shop was a space cadet who repeatedly violated good practice.
There was a dent where his head hit the wall after he short-circuited himself.
The dent in the wall was a cautionary tale told to new people, who then applied
themselves to following good practice. Since he was a space cadet to begin with,
it was hard to tell if the accident caused any permanent injury.
I've had a lot of close calls caused by violating
good practice and by the time I was working with 5,000 volts I was pretty
religious about following good practice.
There are many dangerous jobs and the people who do
those jobs for years without accidents are the ones who learn the good practice
and then religiously follow it.
Driving vehicles in urban traffic is actually
pretty scary. However we learn the good practice and become accustomed to it. A
few times I've been away from vehicles for a prolonged period. Then the first
ride in a vehicle after that was pretty scary, until I became accustomed to it
again.
Wildfires, unlike electronic gear sitting on a
bench, are erratic and move around, so it takes a lot of good practice to make
it safe to deal with wildfires.
Two of the preventive measures firefighters do is
either wrap the whole building in a foil wrap, or spray down the whole building
with foam. I don't see any reason why homeowners can't do that for themsevles.
In a major fire event there just aren't enough available firefighters, and
anything you can do for yourself is a plus. This would be in addition to all of
the practices recommended for creating Defensible Space.
Part of the good practice for wildfires is having
many layers of fallback options. A scared person is a person at risk for making
mistakes in judgment calls. Having several layers of fallback options helps
build confidence and the quality of decisions.
Even if your plan is to evacuate when told to do so
by the local government, things can go wrong with that. Having a fire shelter,
and knowing the appropriate way to use it, adds one more layer of fallback
options, and helps a person stay calm enough to make good choices, and then be
effective in carrying out those choices.
* * * *
Unfortunately, having safety gear tends to increase
risk taking behavior. I've even seen this in myself.
Yes, I've done a lot of successful self-rescues
(some were narrow close calls) because I carry so much gear with me. A
better plan would have been not to need self-rescuing in the first
place.
So possibly the ultimate good practice
is:
Carry fallback safety gear, and be as conservative
about risk taking as if you didn't have the safety gear.
Sincerely,
Roger
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2020 5:59
PM
Subject: Re: [oregoncoots] Defensible
Space for wildfires? > Fires and such
I am certainly not qualified to address all your points Roger. I do
hear about it east of the mountains. Like you said where ponderosa
grows.
I have seen stories on This Old House on PBS about using the
correct materials to build your house and how much that can lessen the
danger.
There are products, foams I think, that you can use to pre treat
your home before you flee.
But with east winds and a very dry summer stuff
burns.
Not sure why the power companies up Santiam Canyon and up
the McKenzie did not cut power like they did up MtnHood above Sandy.
Maybe they did but I did not hear about it.
Scary stuff.
Steve Miller
On Wed, Sep 9, 2020, 5:29 PM Roger Padvorac
< roger@...>
wrote:
Steve,
Maybe you (or somebody you know) could answer
this question. Whatever happened to Defensible Space?
"An area either natural or manmade where
material capable of causing a fire to spread has been treated, cleared,
reduced, or changed to act as a barrier between an advancing wildland fire
and the loss to life, property, or resources. In practice, "defensible
space" is defined as an area a minimum of 30 feet around a structure that is
cleared of flammable brush or vegetation."
I don't hear Defensible Space
talked about anymore. When the news reports that homes were burned down, why
don't they include in the report that the homes were fire-trap homes without
Defensible Space?
I googled this: "Defensible Space"
And got a half million results, so its not like
its difficult to find info on it. Browsing thru the images for this search
shows some great pictures of intact homes surrounded by Defensible Space and
burnt out areas. There were also some pictures of fire-trap homes that
will be goners if a fire ever comes near them.
To me, for a person who is living in wildfire
country, not doing defensible space is as irresponsible as a person doing
drunk driving when they have to close one eye to reduce the number of images
they are seeing.
Defensible Space is a wide spectrum of levels
of preparation. Every bit of preparation decreases the risk of structure
loss due to wildfire. As long as you haven't evacuated, its never to late to
get out the rake and pruners and start reducing the flammable vegetation
near your buildings. From a firefighters perspective, you can ever have too
much Defensible Space.
When there aren't any other options for quickly
getting rid of flammable debris, stack them up in small dense stacks out in
the open, with wide spaces between the stacks. This way when a fire comes
thru the stacks will burn more slowly than the standing grass and brush
would have burnt. This in turn will minimize the size and intensity
of the wall of flame, and so the small stacks are less likely to
ignite tress and buildings than freestanding brush and grass
would.
During a red flag warning is the wrong time to
use mowers with steel blades because if the blade hits a rock, then the
sparks could start a fire. However using a grass cutting machine with a
plastic filament, instead of steel blades, (and a spark arresting muffler)
seems reasonable to me.
Even so, after using a gas powered weedeater
you would need to do a fire watch, just in case the fire smoldered for a
while before breaking into flames.
* * * *
Everybody seems so shocked when fire-trap homes
burn down, when that is to be expected when the home is in the Wildland
Urban Interface in wildfire country. This is especially so when its nearly
impossible in most locations to get permission for prescribed fires to lower
the fuel load before fire season starts.
I agree 100% with fire fighters doing triage
and not risking their lives trying to save fire-trap homes during major fire
events. If it was you, would you spend a lot of effort trying to save a
building that will probably burn down anyway, which is dangerous to be
working on when the fire is close by, or spend a moderate amount of effort
working on a home you can almost guarantee will be saved, which has enough
defensible space so that if the fire suddenly surges forwards, that
defensible space will help save your life?
My health does better when I'm in an area where
ponderosa pines are growing. They don't grow where I live now. In the
last 10 years every single place I was thinking of moving to in WA, OR, and
CA has been burned out. This is in addition to those locations having months
of air pollution levels from smoke that would make me nonfunctional because
I'd be so sick. Maybe the smoke would have killed me. At this point, even if
I had a large windfall, I doubt I'd move to a dry area. Living in the
Douglas fir/live oak transition zone seems like a reasonable compromise
between health and flammability (for now).
* * * *
I used to think that living west of the
Cascades meant not having to pay attention to Defensible Space. Now I'm
seriously questioning that attitude because I'm a bit shocked at the amount
of large fires west of the Cascades.
This year this seems to be the most useful tool
for tracking wildfires:
When its overloaded, it returns the map, but no
fire details, which is usual for "public services" provided by federal
agencies. Sometimes during off hours, when many people are
panicking, if you wait for a long time, the fire details eventually
show up. If there are only small fires, away from densely populated areas,
then this page responds very quickly with fire
details.
In the last 3 days there have been 4 wildfires
near my home that were large enough that they showed up on satellite fire
detection systems. This year seems to be on
track for a record setting year for wildfires on the west coast. Worse yet,
the definition of a "big fire" is steadily getting bigger.
This gets back to wondering why there seems to
be deafening silence about Defensible Space.
* * * *
As I waited on the draft for second thoughts, an interesting idea came
to me.
For people too elderly to do firefighting, the next best thing would be
to load up some pruning and yard work tools, and drive around helping people
who are making desperate efforts at last minute creation of Defensible
Space. An advantage of helping at this point would be few people would
care about doing a neat job, so it would be really easy to do this kind of
work.
One of the images in my mind, from when I was a young adult, was a
carload of ladies who spent their time driving around and helping the old
ladies. What makes this image stick in my mind was one woman was
considerably younger than the others in the car, and she was in her
60's. One can only imagine how old the old ladies were that they were
helping.
A similar activity would be driving around and helping the old duffers
clear Defensible Space around their homes.
Helping somebody save their home would give some serious meaning and
satisfaction to life.
* * * *
If you are spending time anywhere near a fire, you need some basic
safety equipment and fire safety education.
Since a fire can spread faster than 5 mph, "near" depends on the
current weather conditions.
It would be very sad if some volunteers, helping people create
Defensible Space around their homes, got burned up because of an unexpected
change in the weather.
I ordered a lot of my equipment for working in the woods and for
wildfire safety from this place:
I was happy with their service and products. However I haven't ordered
from them since 2009. I glanced at their website and they are still very
serious about forestry and wildfires.
There aren't a whole lot of places, even on the internet, where you can
buy this kind of equipment. Considering the hazards of working in the woods,
I would only buy this kind of equipment from a place that specializes in
selling forestry equipment to people who use it to earn their living.
This is the 4th edition of this book:
I have the 3rd edition and it was very useful when I was working in the
woods during the dry season. While there is a lot of info on managing
hundreds of firefighters, there is also a lot of useful info on Defensible
Space and good safety practices for anybody anywhere near a wildfire. Some
people might think the book is too expensive. For perspective, how much do
you spend on insurance each year? How much is your home worth? How much is
your life worth? I see this book as inexpensive insurance.
Fires can spread dozens of miles a day and trap even professional
firefighters. Its very easy to accidentally start a fire, you can
be held liable for any damage caused by any fires you accidentally
start, and in most weather conditions in most environments, if you have the
equipment on hand a few feet away from you, then you can put out a small
fire before it spreads. In short, its better to be prepared than to be
sorry you weren't.
The good practices aren't rocket science, so they are easy to practice,
once you know about them. For instance, somebody needs to be designated to
watch the weather behavior, and if you can see it, the fire behavior. Then
if there are any ominous changes in behavior, immediately tell the rest of
the team about it. Its easy to become preoccupied doing a task, and not
notice changes in the weather until its too late. Having a designated
watcher reduces the risk of being trapped by a fire. The watcher can also
watch for fires started from tools striking rocks and creating sparks, and
then alert the team while the fire is still small enough to be easily put
out.
Sincerely,
Roger
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2020
6:11 AM
Subject: Re: [oregoncoots] Fires and
such
My son in law was one of the Eugene firemen trapped
yesterday up by Blue River surrounded by the fire. Pretty scary
day. They had no radio since the towers had burned. And too
windy to fly helicopters in to them. My daughter got a call from a
department Captain. The call she dreads. She was sure he
was dead. All of them are now safe. Other crews had to clear
25 miles of down trees, burned trees and power lines to get the firemen
and sheriff deputies out.
He said they saved the school and a few houses but
everything else is gone in Blue River. Please send any extra prayers
to the firemen and folks who have lost so much.
Steve Miller
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Case,
I had assumed that on the east side there was more
awareness of Defensible Space. Its good to know there is a strong focus on it
there.
I'm glad to hear that its baked into new
development. Trying to retroactively change the landscaping around would be an
overwhelming challenge for many people.
Do they allow residential buildings to be built
within 10' of each other. Every time I see construction like that I shake my
head because that's way too close for stopping wind driven fires in residential
areas.
Never having heard of that fire, I found this
page
There is nothing like firsthand experience to wake
people up.
Once I was cutting down fresh alder trees in a
drizzle. I needed to burn up the branches to get them out of the way. Its
difficult to get dripping wet, freshly cut alder to burn, however eventually I
got a fire going with dead wood, and used that to start the green wood
burning.
Once I got the fire going with a good
draft, I threw branches on it as fast as I could so it wouldn't go out.
Eventually the flames were about 20' high, it was making a deep, throbbing,
roaring sound that you could feel as well as hear, and burning twigs were
raining down around me. Since everything was soaking wet, it wasn't a fire
danger.
However the physical force of the fire scared me a
bit. I hadn't ever heard a fire roar like that before. If dripping wet,
freshly cut alder could burn like that, then what about a dry coniferous forest
in a hot dry wind?
Ever since then I've had more respect for wildfire,
and have been more cautious about activity that might accidentally start a
fire.
Sincerely,
Roger
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2020 8:26
PM
Subject: Re: [oregoncoots] Defensible Space for
wildfires? > Fires and such
Defensible Space is promoted here heavily. Mainly spurred from the Awbrey
Hall fire that ripped through the west side of Bend in 1990.
Most new
subdivisions that build in more rural areas have to be a Firewise development
which require special restrictions on building a fire safe structure,
landscaping with firewise approved methods and planting and maintaining the
landscape.
Having a defensible space and a properly built structure are
very important to protecting your home.
Case
Sent from not
here
> On Sep 9, 2020, at 8:18 PM, John Kohnen <jkohnen@...>
wrote:
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