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Wildfire: Are you prepared?
06/24/2003
More than 7 million acres of public land burned in thousands of wildland
fires during the summer of 2000. Extreme weather conditions, combined with
overgrown and dry fuels strained federal firefighting resources.
By
the end of the unusually long and widespread fire season, nearly 30,000
firefighters and support personnel helped manage or suppress fires in 16
states, at a cost of more than $2 billion. Aside from the 191,000-acre
fire near the Hanford nuclear reservation, wildfires largely missed
Washington State.
The winter just ending was the second driest in the past 50 years - only
1977 was drier. Meteorologists with the National Interagency Fire Center
say given the effect of the La Nina weather pattern and dry fuel
conditions that have carried over for more than a year, the potential for
a long and widespread wildland fire season is very real.
Resource Links
National
Interagency Fire Center
Current wildland fire information
U.S.
Forest Service
National Weather Service fire weather
National Smokejumper Association
A critical
factor in estimating fire activity appears to be rainfall during the month
of June and the subsequent timing of rainfall after that. Nine of the 10
worst fire seasons in the past 30 years occurred after a dry June.
Periodic scattered wet thunderstorms every 12-14 days during the summer
seem to have the effect of keeping a lid on the season.
Do
you live in the wildland-urban interface?
Today, more and
more people are choosing to live in the so-called wildland-urban
interface, where homes are surrounded by native vegetation and woodland.
Here, they enjoy the beauty of the great outdoors, yet are subject to the
very real danger of wildfire.
The State Department of Natural
resources asks that home-owners take steps to minimize the risks of
wildfires and to protect their homes and businesses.
“Fire safety
at work and at home goes a long way toward reducing the risk of expensive
wildfires that damage our forests, fish and wildlife habitat, destroy
homes, limit recreational opportunities and threaten public safety,” said
Commissioner of Public Lands, Doug Sutherland.
Two factors have
emerged as the primary determinants of a home's ability to survive
wildfire. These are the home's roofing material and the quality of the
"defensible space" surrounding it.
The No. 1 cause of
home loss is untreated wood-shake roofs, which can catch windblown sparks.
You can’t always depend on roof sprinklers to protect your flammable roof
from burning. Not only is water pressure low during a fire, but the
electricity needed to operate pumps often fails. Use fire-resistant
materials, not wood or shake shingles, to roof homes in or near forests
and grasslands.
Defensible space is an area around a structure
where fuels and vegetation are treated, cleared or reduced to slow the
spread of wildfire towards the structure.
Defensible space
works
During the 1993 raging Malibu fires, a number of
homes were saved as a result of the owners' careful pruning and
landscaping techniques that protected their homes. In a fire situation,
the dead trees and shrubs surrounding your home act as fuel for fire.
Removing flammable vegetation reduces the threat of fire. Follow these
basic rules to create defensible space that works:
Create a fire-safe landcape
Choose fire-resistant materials
The following plants are particularly flammable and should be avoided:
California buckwheat, cedar, deergrass, Douglas fir, fountain grass,
greasewood, juniper, manzanita, pine, rosemary.
When
wildfire threatens
If asked to evacuate, do so immediately
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