With historically dry conditions raising the threat of wildfire in the Upper Arkansas Valley, homeowners can take action to protect their homes. The first step is to make a phone call to schedule a home assessment for wildfire risk.
Homeowners in southern Chaffee County can call the South Arkansas Fire Protection District at 719-539-2212. In northern Chaffee County, call the Chaffee County Fire Protection District at 719-395-6545. Both fire protection districts offer home assessments at no charge.
Chris Bainbridge, Division Chief of Wildfire for the Salida Fire Department, said, “We’ll do the home assessment and a full mitigation assessment,” which includes evaluating the home ignition zone for defensible space.
He said the free assessments are made possible by a grant from the Chaffee Common Ground Fund and include educating homeowners about how to harden their homes against wildfire and walking their property to identify risks.
Bainbridge cited Firewise USA, a certification founded on the decades-long research of Jack Cohen, Ph.D., at the U.S. Forest Service Missoula Fire Sciences Lab.
Cohen demonstrated that the risk from home ignitability far outweighs the risk from a forest burning further than 100 feet from the home.
He discovered that most homes catch fire from windblown embers, which can be carried for at least 2-3 miles. The U.S. Fire Administration now estimates that 90% of homes burned by wildfire are “destroyed indirectly by wind-borne embers that are carried ahead of the fire perimeter.”
In other words, the best way to protect a home from wildfire is to eliminate home ignitability – wood siding, unscreened attic vents, fine fuels like pine needles in gutters, etc. The second-best way is to establish defensible space in the home ignition zone – up to 100 feet. (See Firewise.)
With snowpack at 39%, the Arkansas Basin could see a major fire at any moment, and the risk is likely to increase as temperatures increase. State and federal agencies are pouring billions of dollars into wildfire mitigation logging, but homeowners can far better protect their homes from wildfire than any forest-thinning project.
Our local fire departments are here to help ensure that you understand what works and empower you to protect your home. Give them a call.
Photo: The Bradshaw home survived a massive wind-driven crown fire in 2020 in Oregon thanks to home hardening (photo by Ralph Bloemers, “Elemental: Reimagine WIldfire”).
