Fire Hazard Reduction

By Thembi Borras

Reintroducing fire is not an option for many rural forest landowners, in large part, because of the unmitigated fuel load that has been allowed to build-up for the past 75 years. Treating this fuel load starts at the highest priority site, your home, with the most intense treatment. The balance of the property can be organized into concentric circles, with your home as the center, each warranting a lower priority and a less intense treatment.

The highest priority area is within 30' of your home. In this area, assuming you own the property, maintain a fire-break by removing and clearing away all flammable vegetation or other combustible growth. This will be tempered by your desire to landscape, so the key is to place or maintain single specimen trees, ornamental shrubbery or similar plants in your yard such that they do not form a means of rapidly transmitting a fire from the native growth to your home or outbuildings. Prune the lower branches of specimen trees as high as a pole saw can reach or within a minimum of 6 feet of the ground. Space trees and shrubs 10 feet apart. Choose landscaping that is fire resistant. Remove portions of trees that extend within 10' of the outlet of any chimney or stovepipe. Remove dead or dying wood from any tree adjacent to or overhanging any building. The roof is the most vulnerable part of your house; maintain the roof and gutters free of leaves, needles or other dead vegetative growth. Stack firewood and locate propane tanks 30 feet from any structure and clear flammable vegetation that is within 10 feet. Don't forget it is very important to reduce the fire hazard around your access routes especially the roads over which emergency vehicles will travel.

The second highest priority area is between 30 and 100 feet. In this area, maintain fire protection by removing all brush, flammable vegetation or combustible growth, which includes cutting grass exceeding 18 inches in height. Grazing, mowing or raking grass to 4" or less changes the nature of the fuel from ladder to ground, which is good. Treat specimen trees as in the highest priority area.

The third highest priority area is between 100' and 400' and can be narrower depending on native vegetation and slope. Of particular importance is the downhill distance and direction of high winds. You are most susceptible to fire if you live on a ridge with a steep slope that drops away from your house in the direction from which high winds blow. The goal in this area is to thin overcrowded native plants, eliminate ladder fuels and remove any dead plants that will fuel fire. Eliminating ladder fuels means creating a break in the continuity of vegetation from the ground to the canopy of trees.

The fourth highest priority area is the balance of the property, or the matrix, in which I suggest practicing good forestry which is multifaceted but may include the following timber marking criteria. Although there are a hundred things to consider before marking a tree, the core criteria to improve stand structure, in descending order of priority, are:
1. Remove damaged, dying, or diseased trees. Generally, trees which may die prior to the next harvest. However, some dying trees may be retained to become snags, which are important to wildlife. This is a “sanitation” strategy.
2. Remove suppressed and intermediate crown class trees. These are trees that neither are presently contributing growth to the stand, nor are they expected to do so prior to the next harvest. This is a "thinning from below” strategy.
3. Remove selected larger trees that improve spacing for the higher quality trees, which will be retained. This is a “spacing improvement” strategy.

Fire hazard reduction activities will generate slash and may generate logs. Within 100’ of the structure, slash may be end hauled, chipped or piled and burned. Slash located 100’ or more from the structure may be lopped and scattered. In most circumstances, if the fire hazard reduction activity yields less than 5,000 board feet of timber per 12 month period that you plan to personally use, a Forest Practice Application/ Notification is not needed. Otherwise, a Forest Practice Application/ Notification must be approved by the Washington Department of Natural Resources before operations begin.

Resources at your disposal include the Kittitas County Conservation District, which can be contacted at 509-925-8585, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, the Southeast Headquarters of which can be contacted at 509-925-8510 and your local fire districts. For additional guidance about how to make your home and immediate area more fire safe, go to http://www.firewise.org/ and click on resources. If you have time, consider joining your local fire district, there will be no better way to for you to learn about the emergency response infrastructure and what you can do to better protect your property from fire.