Tis a good time to review fire danger around your dwelling!

[rick91351]

With several wildfires on the loose threatening hundreds of cabins and indeed several towns here in Idaho and Washington state.  I think it is a good time to address fire safety and fuel set backs around dwellings.  Four small towns are currently threatened or could could come under evacuation at anytime in my fairly close proximity.  Pine, Featherville, Rocky Bar and Atlanta.  This is a very historic mining area that is currently threatened.  While this fire is close to where my property is located it is very doubtful any of the fingers of this fire would turn and come our way.  However it does get your attention.       

I have been watching news clips where people were raking up under trees near their cabins and summer homes and there was a good ten inches to a foot of pine needles they are trying to dispose of.  Flammable bushes and brush right next to the houses.  At least some of these people have time to rid themselves of some of this fuel.  But with pine needles ten inches deep and conifers next to the house and up to the eves I really have to wonder what are people thinking.  What if a cigarette, or in this case a ATV starts a fire with all that fuel?

Some firewise info......           

http://firewise.org/information/brochures-and-booklets.aspx

One good brochures listed there in.   

http://firewise.org/~/media/firewise/files/pdfs/booklets%20and%20brochures/brochurebefirewisearoundyourhome.pdf

rlr

[MountainDon]

It's probably too late to do very much for many folks right now, IMO. Trouble is a lot of folks do not seem to think about fire very much, or they have the mindset that "it won't happen here". We're always raking up needles it seems.     We had a local NM Forestry guy do a walk through last week and we still have too many trees though. I knew it, just needed to hear a confirmation. But we are better prepped than most the neighboring properties.

The Forest Service has done more thinning on their lands that abut us, but they still have some work to do south east of us. One interesting thing I noticed is that in one area they just thinned I can now see traces of the last thinning probably about 20 years back. maybe more. It is so dry here that the shredded limbs from back then have still not decayed. This time the plan is to burn the slash rather than shred it. Hope there is lots of snow this fall so that can be done.


Random thought/news/info.... re: the Waldo fire this year, Pike San Isabel NF near Colorado Springs... The fire fighters are credited with saving hundreds of homes there, even though hundreds did burn. The hot shot crews saved many neighborhoods by going through before the fires hit... fires raging in the background, and cutting down any trees within 25 feet or so of the houses... then dragging them away. Ditto wood fences between homes; chainsaw the posts and drag them away. Have a wood porch on the house? Chainsaw and drag away. Changed the look of the neighborhood, but not as much as fire would have.

[rick91351]

Thanks Don, I must apologize for not including people Utah, Colorado, even Oklahoma when I wrote my posting who have lost cabins and homes this year.  Guess it just took something in my own back yard.          

The people of Featherville were evacuated because of dense smoke day before yesterday.  Of course many decided to remain.  We were up watering trees yesterday and it was unbelievable, the lighting made the country surreal with the smoke hanging, drifting and shifting.  It is fifteen or twenty miles away.

The Governor has a cabin in there some where near Featherville or Pine.  They packed up 'the cabin' and readied it for  the fire.  The Governor of the great State of Idaho has used this fire here for a couple photo ops as well.  He is shown trimming back brush with a chain saw.  He actually knew how to use the dog gone thing!  Way to go Butch!!  Even seen photos of him in his shop.  Never liked Butch until I seen him with a chain saw actually working.  Liked him more when I find out he was actually not on his property but helping others.  I don't care if maybe if it was for just a photo op.  He has attended meetings with the other property owners in the area as well.  Heck of a good roper and western rider as well.  Pretty common sense fellow for a elected official.  I guess he is okay after all.                              

During the cabin season it might be a good idea to have work days or just dedicate an hour when you go to the cabin and reduce the fuel load.  Inventory landscape that might need cut back.  Strange how it grows up around our house here in the valley.  Looking at old photos I am well convinced it does so up there as well.  You don't have to be a slave to it but please beware trees and bush grow, needles and leaves accumulate spending a little times each visit might well save a lot of loss latter. 

[Huge29]

I have two friends who lost cabins this last year.  I saw pics of the one and there was nothing but the chimney and the metal rood now laying on the ground.  Very tragic!  The real problem is that even if the cabin had been saved due to correct care of the trees there was not a single tree remaining on the 20 acre site, so they will just take the insurance proceeds and apparently wait ten years until it is even worth replanting.  An HOA near where our cabin is has an annual July 4th tree collection work party where they collect all of the trees and then have it all hauled off.  The same HOA had a fire within about 1/4 mile three years ago.  I don't think taking care of the trees would make any difference as I have seen fires cross the Green River near the Flaming Gorge dam in multiple locations, cross I-15 in Southern Utah and cross the huge interstate near the tunnels in Oakland.  Certainly worth trying if the fire is small, but no contest for a major fire with the wind pushing it. 

[rick91351]

Huge29 you are so correct.  Yet how many dwellings were saved because of fire set backs and good tree trimming practices to prevent laddering and crowning.  The firefighters do have a chance to save your structures then.  However I am not saying it is a 100% or 50% or 10% always going to occur.  In nature nothing is 100% other than maybe gravity.     

We have went through major fires here where our property is at.  Foothills Fire in 1991 was the largest in the United States.  We were in the middle of a drought.  It took fifteen minutes to go from 5,300 feet on this mountain to the crest of 8,000 ft.  Our cattle were in that big draw or up that creek that comes down through the left hand side of the photo.  Lava Mt and Lava Cr.  We lost a lot of cattle up there but it was the safest place for them.   



This mountain Rattlesnake in the back ground burned so hot that there was no keeping the soil up there.  Caused massive erosion and sediment problems. 



Yet our ranch did not burn.  Why?  I like to think an act of God in the form of Terry the USFS timber cruiser who lives on up the road.  He told me he was waiting for the winds to change.  He had a plan and had talked it over with the fire bosses.  He figured when the fire got close that the winds would shift and start drawing the air toward it.  We are talking a huge fire over twenty miles wide by that point.  Burning grass lands and stands of Ponderosa Pine and pockets of Doug Fir.  When that occurred and of course as I said had talked it all over with the fire bosses to make sure there was no one in the area, they gave him the go ahead.  He and his trusty motorcycle back fired seven or eight miles next to road.  He said that ran so spooky  crazy being drawn  toward the big fire several, several miles away.  His actions saved a lot of property on that side of the Prairie.             

I am not saying nor suggesting you will stop all wild fires around your cabins, homesteads and farmsteads.  The major ones it just is not going to happen.  Nor more than stopping all damage from floods, tornadoes and hurricanes no matter how much you do.  Not even if you use the newest and best engineered current building practices.  You can however stop smaller fires.  You can prevent them from occurring because of sloppy house keeping.  You can prevent smaller fires from crowning in to trees and making large fires that give birth to huge fires.       

[Huge29]

Well said!  The largest fire near our property only destroyed one cabin and it was destroyed as there was no setback and was a small private windie road.  Had it been a better road with others around it would have been a higher priority with better access making it easier to defend.  The power of the fires is just amazing as you mentioned; we are really at the mercy of the wind, however I do very much believe in being prepared, it would still help with a small fire.