Benefits to Firewise Landscaping

By Beth McMahon

Horticulture agent forTexas A&M AgriLifeExtension Gillespie County

Wildfires in the south, wildfires in the north and we’ve had wildfires here in Gillespie County, too.

Sometimes, these wildfires burn more than grass, they can catch houses on fire. There are cheaper things you can do to decrease the risk of your house burning in a wildfire rather than installing a metal roof or dual paned tempered glass windows.

This is by altering your landscape.

The goal of firewise landscaping is not necessarily to prevent the landscape from burning, but to keep the fire on the ground and less intense. This method divides a landscape into three zones.

Zone 1 is five feet up to the home, Zone 2 is 5-30 feet from your home and Zone 3 is 30-100 feet away.

In Zone 3, remove dead wood in the trees and low branches that hang 6-10 feet off the ground. Do not have any burn piles in this area. Reduce the height of the grass yearly by either shredding it after dormancy or grazing it. Remove small shrubs that are next to trees.

Zone 2 is the home landscape. Having islands of shrubs or flowerbeds in this area with rock or brick borders can break up an incoming fire. Short green lawns or rockscapes are also helpful.

Zone 1 is close to your house. This is the most vulnerable spot. Do not store bottles of propane and firewood against your home. Avoid using flammable materials when building a deck, and make sure there is nothing under the deck that can ignite.

Make sure your gutters are kept clean. Embers falling into piles of dead leaves in these are an easy ignition source. If you can, avoid using a wood mulch in this zone, or at the very least, use one that is not pine-based.

Right up against the house there are two landscaping recommendations.

One is to have rockscape.

Alternatively, you can have short fleshy green plants that are kept watered.

Whichever of the two landscape types you choose, keep the vegetation short and do not have bushes by your windows. If these bushes ignite, they can potentially heat the window’s glass hot enough that it will break, which will let embers in.

There are plants that have low moisture content, resins or oils in their stems or have thickly packed vegetation. These should not be planted anywhere near your home.

The list includes cedars, junipers, cypresses, palm trees, yaupons, myrtles, Texas sage, ornamental bushy grasses, santolina, viburnums, oleander, hollies and wisteria. Many of these shrubs are typically used in an evergreen foundation planting, but for a firewise landscape you will need to be more creative.

While trees are welcome for the shade they provide, if a fire gets into the leafy canopy of a tree, it can spread embers over a far area. To prevent or lessen tree crown fires, space out all your tree plantings so that within 30 feet from your home, there is 18 feet between canopies, 30-60 feet out, 12 feet between canopies and 6 feet between canopies 60 feet from your home. There should be no limbs overhanging your roof. This will be helpful in case of windstorms, as well.

I do realize that live and shin oaks are motte forming trees, and they can have multiple trunks in a small area. Treat these groupings of trees as single trees, though if your entire backyard is treed with live oaks, you may consider thinning them.

If you live in a small acreage subdivision and your neighbor’s house is close by, it would be wise to coordinate your firewise landscaping efforts with them. If you are inside town, having a firewise landscape is less of a concern.

If you have any questions about firewise landscaping, please feel free to call me at the Gillespie County AgriLife Extension office at 830-997-3452 or email me at Elizabeth.mcmahon@agnet.tamu.edu.

Several homeowners in Fredericksburg, including this resident in The Preserve neighborhood off North Cherry Street, have embraced a model of firewise

landscaping. — Standard-Radio Post/ Samuel Sutton