San Bernardino County Fire Dept. Thins Wildfire Fuel Heading Into ‘Wildfire Awareness Month’

HESPERIA, CA. (Pain In The Pass) >> With another year of drought conditions in California, preparing your home for wildfire is more important than ever. The month of May has been designated “Wildfire Awareness Month”. This year’s theme is “Prepare Now! Wildfire Knows No Season”.

With Wildfire Awareness Month San Bernardino County Fire Department will be conducting a training prescribed burn (control burn) this week. This will be a live fire training burn scheduled for Monday morning around 8am May 2 – Thursday, May 5 each day, if weather permitted. Live Fire Training (control burn) will be located north of the west fork of the Mojave River and east of the California Aqueduct. This is a training exercise for the Interagency Dozer Academy. Smoke and flames will be visible throughout this exercise while firefighters remove fire prone grasses and brush at multiple locations each day. This helps slow down a wildfire from reaching property.

San Bernardino County Fire Dept. and CAL Fire want you to remember it’s a crucial time to create defensible space around your home or property and learn how to prevent careless, unwanted wildfires this summer.

Things you can do to become more fire adapted include:

• Talk to your local fire department about how to prepare for a wildfire, situational awareness before a fire, when to evacuate, and what you and your community should expect during a response.
• Contact your local fire department to conduct a risk assessment on your property.
• Create a plan to address issues in your property’s Defensible Space Zone, including:
  • maintaining a noncombustible area around the perimeter of your home;
  • managing vegetation along fences;
  • clearing debris from decks and patios, eaves, and porches;
  • selecting proper landscaping and plants;
  • knowing the local ecology and fire history;
  • moving radiant heat sources away from the home (i.e., wood piles, fuel tanks, sheds);
  • thinning trees and ladder fuels around the home
• Develop a personal and family preparedness plan.
• Support land management agencies by learning about wildfire risk reduction efforts, such as using prescribed fire to manage local landscapes.
• Contact the local planning/zoning office to find out if your home is in a high wildfire risk area and if there are specific local or county ordinances you should be following.

Defensible space, coupled with home hardening, is essential to improving your home’s chance of surviving a wildfire. Defensible space is the buffer you create between a home/building on your property and the brush/grass, trees, shrubs, or any wildland area that surround it. More defensible space means a better fighting chance to save you home/building.

Zones 1 and 2 currently make up at least 100 feet of defensible space required by law. Assembly Bill 3074, passed into law in 2020, this requires a third zone for defensible space. This law requires the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to develop the regulation for a new ember-resistant zone (Zone 0) within 0 to 5 feet of the home by January 1, 2023. The intensity of wildfire fuel management varies within the 100-foot perimeter of the home, with more intense fuels’ reduction occurring closer to your home. Start at the home and work your way out to 100 feet or to your property line, whichever is closer. Remember if you can, you can make a larger defensible zone than 100 feet. The bigger zone means, the better chance of surviving a wildfire for you in the long run.

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