Fireproofing Your Home Against Wildfires

The risk of wildfire is increasing every day. This is due to a number of reasons, such as climate change and wildland urban interface (urban expansion into wildfire-prone areas).

The only way to effectively protect your home is to pursue home hardening and create a defensible space. It requires a comprehensive strategy of fire-resistant materials, landscaping, water defenses, and appropriate maintenance steps.

Hardening your home can reduce home insurance claims, and protect your family.

Don’t worry. It can be done, and we’re here to help you know how.

Creating Defensible Space & Vegetation Management

According to the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association), it’s prudent to prepare your home in three zones that will help reduce embers and keep flames smaller.

Immediate Zone

The home and everything extending five feet out from it is the Immediate Zone. It is the most vulnerable to embers, and it’s the most important to you. If you have any flammable materials such as mulch, plants, firewood piles, and other debris, it need to be moved more than five feet away from the home. Careful landscaping will be required to interrupt fire’s path when it’s on the move.

Intermediate Zone

This zone is the second most important. It will require attentive landscaping and hardscaping to create breaks that direct fire away from the home and towards safety. This is everything five to thirty feet from your home. Prune trees and clean debris so that this zone is as low-risk as possible.

Extended zone

This zone is everything thirty to two hundred feet out. If a wildfire comes, no amount of fire protection modifications will prevent it, but you can disrupt it with noncombustible materials and redirection. That is the purpose of the extended zone.

Home Hardening

Hardening the building envelope refers to strengthening a building against fire. In our case, that refers to your home. The components of the building (walls, roofs, foundations, and all openings) need to be reinforced with intentionality if a wildfire is going to be deterred.

Roofs and Gutters

You need to take steps such as cleaning the roofs and gutters of all debris (pine needles, dead leaves, etc) and installing fire-prevention measures such as noncombustible gutter covers that will keep you prepared at all times.

It’s important to use Class A fire-rated roofing materials (metal, tile, asphalt shingles with fire rating, etc) instead of wood or untreated shingles. You must also ensure that all gaps under the roof tiles are sealed so that your home is an ember-resistant zone.

Vents, Soffits, Eaves, Openings

The idea here is to seal up your home against embers. This means covering your roof, foundation, attic, and soffit vents with noncombustible corrosion-resistant metal mesh screening will aid in preventing the spread of fire. Ember-resistant vents certified for wildland fire prevention will also help.

Concrete Siding and Exterior Wall Materials

The siding materials you choose are one of the most important decisions you can make. Avoid combustible materials such as wood. That doesn’t mean you have to give up style, however. ClearCreek Siding, for example, offers a concrete log siding that’s made up of ignition-resistant materials, carries a Class 1/A fire rating, and looks just like a traditional log siding. It doesn’t just protect your home, it makes it beautiful.

Other ways to improve your home’s exterior include ensuring your siding is uninterrupted from top to bottom with no gaps around windows or doors. Remove ladder fuels (vegetation that fuels fire upwards and into a tree canopy or roof) so that the fire stays low.

Windows, Doors, and Garage Openings

Radiant heat exposure can cause some things to break or combust. You can potentially prevent window breakage by installing dual-pane windows with heat-strengthened or tempered glass.

Your frames, ideally, should be metal or another fire-rated material rather than wood or vinyl.

Shutters, doors, and garage doors should be made with non-combustible materials, as well. The last thing you want them to do is catch embers or turn on fire because of radiant exposure. These spaces are in the Immediate home ignition zone. They’re vital to the fireproofing of your home.

Decks, Porches, Fences, and Attachments

Do any necessary maintenance such as replacing loose or missing roof tiles and shingles, clearing exterior attic vents, repairing or replacing damaged or loose window screens/broken windows. Any mesh patios and decks should be boxed in to prevent combustible materials from gathering.

Additionally, make sure that underneath your decks and proches are clear of everything, but especially fire-prone items and materials. Small flames turn big very quickly.

Exterior Sprinklers, Gels, and Water Defenses

Sprinklers on the exterior of your home can keep surfaces wet and reduce radiant heat. These devices aren’t approved by the State Fire Marshal as replacements for good materials and design, but they are highly useful in an emergency.

You can use pumps, water storage, heat-activated gels, and coatings to further seal up your home and prevent the spread of fire.

Your best bet is to take each of these approaches and implement them, rather than just focusing on one aspect, such as ventilation requirements or keeping clean rain gutters. In the end, it is always wise to consult with a local building official about what you’re doing right and how you can do more.