English Mountain Property Owner's Association

What does it mean to be Fire Wise?

Being "Fire Wise" means to live safely near a fire dependent natural community. Fire Wise principles can be used to protect homes via landscape design and vegetation management.
This process begins by minimizing the risk of home ignition by carefully landscaping around residential structures, thinning trees controlling brush, and choosing fire resistant plants.

Fire Wise Landscaping is the practice of designing and maintaining your property in a way that reduces it's vulnerability to wildfire.
The end goal is to create a land scape that is both beautiful and also provides a defensible space to protect your home and property from fire.

It is also important to select ignition resistant building materials and positioning structures away from slopes.

The 3 P's of fire safety: Prevent, Plan, and Practice

#1: Prevent: Identify all major fire hazards. Mitigate and manage possible ignition sources (limbs that over-hang a roof, or possible ember ignition source such as leaves in gutters).

#2 Plan: Utilize plants which are less flammable than others.
Affordable fire resistant construction materials can be easily acquired.
Make sure your smoke detectors are working otherwise you can contact your fire department to get free smoke detectors installed.

#3 Practice: Designate escape routes from your dwelling and surrounding areas. Remember that storage locations of hazardous materials (gasoline, oil, ext.) can drastically effect the viability of escape routes in an emergency.

Fire will have different effects on various commonly used building materials:

• Bricks- can withstand temperatures of up to 1200℃.

• Steel- anything above 600℃ can cause stress and at 1400℃ it will melt.

• Timber- can be treated with fire retardant chemicals or intumescent paint to add further fire resistance and to delay effects for fire for a given amount of time.

• Stone- can highly vary depending on the type used.

• Concrete- reinforced concrete has a low thermal conductivity, can withstand up to 1000℃ for approximately 60 minutes before it begins to lose strength.

• Glass- if glass is exposed to extreme heat it is prone to cracking and shattering.

Remember the golden rule of fire safety:
GET OUT, STAY OUT AND CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY.