 |
| Wildfire Smoke Sunset (photo by V.A. McMillan) |
18 January 2025
Title: If I Were to
Rebuild After a Wildfire
Never let a crisis go to
waste – Socialist Saul Alinsky. Governments follow a similar mantra. So, with
California once again being ravaged by wildfires and Canuckistan having had two
really bad wildfire seasons (2023 & 2024), it is time to share some
constructive suggestions for building better homes to weather wildfires.
Nothing I am sharing is particularly novel. Four years in school (2019 – 2022)
and reviewing tons of documents, articles, publications, textbooks, and
reports; all to learn that the answers to creating fireproof homes has been
around for decades. And more importantly your government and your insurance
company both know this information. So why don’t you???? That is a curious
question. FEMA, IBHS, ICLR and the numerous wildfire research facilities in North
America, have all done the research and written the reports to share how to
fireproof your home. Yet, homes continue to be made with materials and using
designs that do NOT protect you or your home from wildfires! So, in the
following blog post, I will endeavour to share as many practical ideas as
possible. If you need to know my source material, here are some links to my
past blog posts sharing my school research which have appropriate references:
Capstone: https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/capstone-research-project-houses-of.html
Research Proposal: https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-research-proposal-for-houses-of.html
Lit Review: https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2023/09/houses-of-straw-sticks-bricks.html
Lit Review: https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2023/08/beyond-three-little-pigs-creating_29.html
Bridging Gap: https://thegoodplanblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/bridging-gap-connecting-resilient.html
In keeping with my research
(LINK),
I would want the following features if I was rebuilding my home after a
wildfire:
- · Steep pitch roof (a minimum of a 4/12
pitch, with a 6/12 or 8/12 pitch being worth considering for shedding embers
and fire brands) covered with metal roofing. If wind is also a consideration in
addition to wildfire, ensure the roof is a hip roof design and not a gable roof
or a complex roof design, to shed the wind.
- · Augment windows (double or triple pane
units) with fire shutters or storm shutters. Roll-down metal shutters would
also be an option.
- · Storm doors would also be worth adding over
entrances that are not protected with roll-down shutters or other styles of
storm/fire shutters.
- · Consider upgrading to 2”x8” stick
construction from the standard 2”x6” wall construction currently used in the
housing industry. A 2”x8” wall construction would allow roll-down shutters for
doors and windows to be built with a near flush finish with the exterior wall covering.
A 2”x8” wall would hold more insultation providing improved thermal efficiency
whether to preventing heating or cooling, depending on the weather conditions.
- · Insulate with Rock Wool mineral-based
insulation, which is fireproof would be my first choice.
- · Fire rated (FR) Gyproc interior boarding
would go without saying. The exterior would be finished with a cement-fibre board
like Hardie Shingle board or other Hardie Board products. Any exposed beams
would be covered with Hardie Plank.
- · All vents or exhaust opening would be
covered with fine wire mesh covers – no larger than 1/8” spacing between wires.
¼” wire spacing is too large and allows fine embers and small fire brands to
enter, which could defeat other fireproofing techniques.
 |
| 2"x8" Wall Features |
- · Make your home and your property as
defendable as possible from fire. Both FireSmart and Firewise provide many
suggests that work. Start with fireproofing the area from 0’ to 5’ around your
home. Once fireproofed, this space needs to be maintained and kept free from
combustible fuels. This is referred to as Zone Zero, the space every homeowner
has control over. Defend this space with your time and effort and you stand a
higher chance that your home will be less impacted by fire if a fire occurs in
close proximity.
- · Roof mounted sprinkler systems offer
another defence tool to protect your roof and home from embers and fire brands
for establishing themselves. If the embers and fire brands cannot burn surface
materials because they are wet, then a fire is much more difficult to get
established. In drier climates having a ready source of water to supply the
sprinkler system would be very helpful. Back this up with a gas or propane
powered water pump in the event that grid power is out, and water lines are no
longer pressured – i.e., you turn the tap and no water comes out…no pressure
for the water system.
- · Where your home comes in contact with the
ground, the walls going up from this point want to be covered in a
non-combustible surface – solid concrete foundation walls, stone foundation
walls, or covered with cement parging, stucco, cement-fibre board, tile,
cultured stone. It does not matter too much as long as it cannot burn. This
wants to cover at least the first 6” to 12” above the ground. This is an area
where embers and fire brands projected from the wildfire will accumulate.
Again, if a fire cannot establish against the wall, fire is less likely to get
inside your home.
- · Working out from your home are Zones 1
thru 3 (5’ out to 100’ around your home). The more prevention efforts you put
into these spaces the greater the chance fire will have less impact on your
home. Also, the more defendable this space, the greater the chance the wildfire
service will invest their time to defend your home. From the wildfire services’
perspective, why would they invest any time or risk the lives of their
firefighters defending a property that is a powder keg ready to explode when
the ember storm arrives??? If you take the time and make the effort to create a
defendable space, it will also be a safe location for wildfire firefighters to
protect themselves, too. Follow FireSmart and Firewise before it's fire season.
- · Water feature as part of your landscaping
is another method to ensure there is water on your property for fighting
wildfires. You may even want to contact your local wildfire firefighters to get
their input on your landscaping to ensure they can pump from your water source,
if ever needed.
- · Going back to Zone 3, the outer space of
your property defence. Consider strategic forest management. Yes, the purest
fire defence would be to log everything and leave no fuel for a wildfire to
feed on…however, few people want to live on a concrete slab or gravel parking
lot. Defend hardest closest to your home and change the fire behaviour as far
from your home as possible. This can be achieved by removing deadwood laying on
the forest floor and removing ladder fuels that go from the ground up the trunk
of the trees. Also, delimb your trees for the first 6’ to 10’ above the ground.
Spacing between trees also plays a role in fire behaviour. The closer trees are
together the easier it is for a wildfire to move. There are many factors that
play into making a recommended spacing – age, height, health, species, climate,
and time since last forest fire. This could be an entire blog post on its own.
Once delimbed for 10’ spacing could be 10’ to 12’ between tree trunks, but that
might be too close in some instances. Another strategy is to replace conifer
trees with deciduous species closer to your home, as they do not burn as easy during
most seasons. Local area knowledge needs to be applied to any of these
suggestions.
I
hope this gives you some ideas, too! For more ideas do your own research on:
- · FireSmart
- · Firewise
- · Institute
for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR)
- · Insurance
Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
- · Dr.
Jack Cohen – US Forest Service / Wildfire Researcher
To plug my own book, The
G.O.O.D. Plan – Get Out Of Dodge (available on Amazon),
I wrote some suggestions for homeowners for defending their property from wildfire
to prevent getting evacuated. Many have been repeated above.
Until next time…take the
time to defend your home and property from wildfire!
Mountainman.
No comments:
Post a Comment