Your Land as a Passive Wildfire Defense

7/22/2021 (Permalink)

If your home is damaged by fire or any other reason, SERVPRO of Lowell is ready and able to repair any damage

Nothing frightens a homeowner more than the thought of seeing their property engulfed in a raging wildfire. While most home fires in Massachusetts are ignited by other things, wildfires are a more frequent occurrence than you might think. And they burn so hot and move so fast, it’s a small marvel that firefighters are able to stop them at all.

But there are methods you can employ to prevent and stop wildfires, the most important of which is being careful, which is far and away the best method of prevention, even though it still doesn’t happen often enough.

Let’s examine one of those methods today: It’s called “defensible space.”

What Is Defensible Space?

It’s not some new NASA missile thing. “Defensible space” is a series of buffer zones which surround your home and increase your chances of being protected from wildfire. Using the land around you wisely, removing fuel sources, and adding hard areas and materials that won’t burn all defend your home passively, before active help ever arrives.

Defensible space give you a chance to choke out a fire before it reaches your home by depriving it of fuel. If a fire can’t eat, it can’t grow. It also gives firefighters their best chance of stopping a wildfire before it gets to your house.

Why Defensible Space Matters

You probably think of wildfires as primarily a West Coast threat, but they can and do happen everywhere in the United States. In fact, there were over 59,000 wildfires across the country in 2020.

Even if we set aside California’s 10,000+ fires, there were still almost 1,000 fires per state on average in 2020, and no state got by without any at all.

Even Massachusetts had over 1,100 wildfires. And don’t look now, but 2021 is on pace to shatter last year’s mark—there have been 25% more fires this year so far.

It’s a good idea to set protections up to safeguard your home from wildfires, and using defensible space is a smart, practical way to protect what’s most precious.

If your home is damaged by fire of any sort, wild or not, SERVPRO is ready and able to repair the damage caused. Get in touch today to get the pros on your team.