Protecting your Home from Wildfire!

Preparing a fire Wise Community. Can your home survive a fire?

Defensible Space 

• A zone around your home where vegetation has been modified and/or reduced from the threat of a wildfire with fire fighter safety taken into account.

Home Survivability

• A zone around your home where vegetation has been modified and/or reduced from the threat of a wildfire.  

• This includes a well designed fire safe structure.

Home Ignition Zone

• A zone around your home that determines the
  vulnerability of a wildfire, usually extending out 100 to 200 feet from the home.

• This is the area where the fuel reduction and modification occurs.

How Windows Can Help Protect Your Home From Wildfire 

• Glass will break in less than a minute from the radiated heat of a wildfire allowing flames and embers to shoot into you home.

• They will typically break and collapse before the structure will ignite.  Windows are one of the weakest links in a home.

• Providing the defensible space around your home is an important part of keeping the radiated heat away from your windows.

• Glass is brittle and a poor conductor of heat.  Glass expands when heated.  Radiant heat will fracture plate glass in 60 seconds but not ignite wood.

• Most wildfire radiant heat is absorbed or transmitted through window glass.

• The size of the window is an important factor.  In tests a 3' x 5' window always collapsed with significant fracturing where a 2' x 2' window never collapsed.

• Experts say double-pane (multi-pane) and tempered glass are best for fire safety.  The tempering increases the resistance to thermal stress and impacts and takes longer to break.  Low E (Emissivity) glass has fire-resistant properties.

• Fire resistant window treatments inside and out are a big help.  Like metal shutters.  Fire retardant curtains are available and also blankets can be used in an emergency.

Some other concepts homeowners need to understand

• Homeowners do have a choice weather their home will survive a wildland fire.

• Fires do not move in waves.

• Fires spread from ignition to ignition.

• Big flames do not usually burn down homes.

• Little things burn down homes.

• Big flames do not last much more than 60 seconds.

• Homes burn down from direct flames, fire brands (embers) or radiated heat.

• Fire burns humans much faster than structures.

• Our goal is to reduce the fuel thus reducing the head source around the home.  Defensible Space.

• Fire needs Fuel, Heat and Oxygen. 

• If we reduce the fuel load around the house, and a wildfire were to occur, the heat produced by that fire would be greatly reduced.