Small actions can reduce wildfire risks

By PHUONG LE Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) - As wildfires burn homes and thousands of square miles across the West, fire experts say simple actions like clearing brush around a home or removing pine needles from decks could make the difference in whether a house survives or burns to the ground.

Fire science research over the last decade has produced strategies that can help reduce a home's chances of igniting, and fire officials are trying to spread the word in fire-prone areas that these little things are hugely important.

"It hard to provide 100 percent guarantee on anything, but there are a number of things homeowners can do - and a lot of them are small but also important," said Steve Quarles, a senior scientist with the nonprofit Florida-based Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety.

Whether a home makes it through a fire often depends on what is or is not in the zone surrounding it, known as defensible space, as well as the design and materials used in home construction, Quarles said.

Property owners can reduce their risk of wildfire damage by choosing metal roofs over wood shake roofs, for example, keeping flammable materials such as firewood piles away from the home, spacing trees farther apart and by clearing brush from nearby roads.

Increasingly, homeowners and communities are seeing the benefits of such strategies, and they're joining voluntary programs such as the National Fire Protection Association's Firewise Communities.

"Interest is growing as people understand that they actually have a role to play," said Lucian Deaton, senior program manager for Firewise, which is partly paid for by the U.S. Forest Service.

More than 1,000 communities in 41 states are recognized as "firewise" because they're taking steps to prepare their homes from wildfire risks.

Still, that represents a small fraction of the estimated 72,000 communities located in wildfire-prone areas.

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Small actions can reduce wildfire risks