Wildfire season is coming, so people must take precautions to protect their homes and possessions.
You can take measures to protect your property from embers and radiant heat, including securing valuables and removing flammable items from your property and backyard. Additionally, there is a lot that you can do to lessen the likelihood of a fire breaking out in your home.
The Home Ignition Zone includes the region from your home’s foundation to the property boundary (or 200 feet out, based on the size of your plot of land) and can be protected from the risk of wildfire in several ways.
A road, rock mulch, or other hardscaping features can be practical fuel barriers (breaks in vegetation that help inhibit the spread of fire) and correctly spacing out trees and other vegetation on your property.
Within this defensive zone, there are many options for hardening your home or protecting the main building construction against attack.
Do-it-yourself hardening
To begin, you may take low-key (and cheap) measures to protect your house. Make sure your roof and gutters are free of leaves, pine needles, and other organic material, and trim tree branches that come within ten feet of the outside of your home; this is just as vital as clearing combustible organic debris from your yard.
The installation of a gutter guard and cover made of a fire-safe material is also recommended for this purpose.
If embers land on your roof, they can find their way inside through any broken or absent shingles or tiles.
To prevent embers from entering your home through vents, especially those in the attic, install 1/16-inch to 1/8-inch metal mesh screening over the apertures.
You can protect window panes from flying embers by installing metal screens measuring between 1/16 and 1/8 of an inch.
In the event of a wildfire, bringing any patio and deck equipment inside or at least 30 feet from home is essential. This will significantly lessen the risk of fire spreading to your property.
Hire an expert to harden your home
The homeowner or a hired handyperson can do minor exterior renovations with little effort. However, several options exist for enhancing or retrofitting your home to make it more fireproof.
We’ve included several of the most critical items to address if your home isn’t up to the current fire safety regulations of your area, but whether or not you need to make structural improvements to your home will depend on how recently it was constructed, the location you live in, and how much money you can spend.
We will discuss each section of the house separately.
The fence
In deciding whether or not to install a fence around your property, you should give serious thought to whether or not the fence will come within touching distance of your home. Suppose you want to lessen the possibility of a fence starting a fire in your yard and spreading to your house. In that case, you should select a non-flammable material for the first five feet of fencing.
While it is crucial to utilize fire-resistant materials, it is not necessary to spend thousands of dollars on renovations to protect your property from wildfires.
The best way to prevent wildfires from damaging your home is to create a defensible space around its perimeter and to take other, less drastic measures to harden it.
The deck
Because decks are both an outdoor area and a continuation of the house, fires that start there can quickly spread to the rest of the house.
It would help if you built new decks with materials that are not flammable and resistant to being ignited. (This doesn’t rule out using wood for your deck; some types of wood have naturally occurring fire-retardant treatments.)
Some composites, aerated concrete, and pressure-treated wood are also examples of ignition-resistant materials.
It would be best if you kept off leaves and other combustible debris on the deck, and you should keep flammable items like firewood and gas tanks at least 30 feet away.
The roof
While writing this, the Bloodhound Gang’s 1996 hit song “The Roof Is On Fire” keeps running through my head. If only to remind me that they may not have had to let the roof burn if it had been upgraded with metal or noncombustible composite shingles or even clay tile.
The roof is the most sensitive portion of your house in a wildfire, so if you need to repair or replace it, you should consider using one of the materials described above. Wood and typical asphalt shingles are highly combustible.
Siding
Some sidings are flammable and can quickly melt if a fire breaks out, while others can contain fire and embers, allowing the fire to spread inside the house.
Such materials include external wood panels or shingles, vinyl siding, and metal roofing.
Three-coat stucco, fiber-cement, and brick are all excellent options for fireproof siding when remodeling or building a new home.
As an additional layer of protection against radiant heat and flame contact exposures, wood siding that has been coated with exterior-rated fire-retardant chemicals may be the best option.
Windows
Single-pane glass is more common in older homes, and oversized windows are the ones most likely to shatter if subjected to extreme heat.
Consider dual-pane windows with tempered glass as one pane for maximum resistance to radiant heat and shattering if you want to upgrade your existing windows with a fire-resistant kind.
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