The Firewise Madera County March 18, 2015 Lion’s Club presentation went well. Roger Maybee showed residents how to harden you home.
The purpose of home hardening is to ready your home for ember / firebrand storms. A well hardened home will withstand direct flame contact better as well, but resisting embers is the key.
Firebrands are overwhelmingly responsible for structure and home destruction by wilfire in the Wildland Urban Interface.
Watch these firewise videos for more examples and discussion about just how that happens.
One of the visual aids shown above that Roger uses is a photo of several burned homes around homes that didn’t burn.
Harden Your Home: Defensible Space Alone Is Not Enough
This particular photo is of homes in an Urban / Suburban setting, with no wildland vegetation in sight. Roger uses this to really show that clearing vegetation is great, but clearing defensible space alone is not enough.
In this example, many homes were lost. Why?
Others were not. Why?
The answer is home hardening. Or the lack of home hardening.
The homes that survived were better prepared for ember storms, in this case embers from adjacent homes burning.
When neighborhood structures catch fire, the burning homes become the threat, rather than the fire “front” itself. This creates a new fire independent of the wildfire.
This phenomena is just like a wildfire “spotting” via embers / firebrands creating new fires, but the fuel is your home!!
High density neighborhoods pose a particularly dangerous potential situation under those conditions.
So, be prepared and harden your home.