With wildfires burning in several parts of the state, homeowners in high-risk areas should take precautions to keep themselves and their property safe.
State and local foresters have been educating Coloradans about fire-wise landscaping since last summer’s fires at Waldo Canyon and High Park, telling them to remove pine needles from their gutters; keep flammable materials such as propane tanks away from the house; and keep the landscaping lean, clean and green.
The fires also have been a wake-up call to many homeowners who had no home inventories; no disaster plans; and
If you put off any of these fire preparations, go to denverpost.com/athome to find stories that will walk you through them:
• Evacuation preparations: so that you can grab it, go and have what you need.
• Defensible space: in the urban-wildland interface.
• Home inventory: how your insurance company can help you create one,
If you’re changing your landscape to be more fire-resistant this year, you might do well to study these tips state foresters gave professional landscapers at a conference earlier this year in Denver.
• Conifers generally aren’t fire-wise, and that’s because of their high resin content. In other words, their sap is fuel. But you don’t have to remove all of them from your property or disavow planting and loving them. Proper placement, thinning and pruning will cut fire hazards even in a conifer collection.
• Fire-wise is often water-wise — in fact, there’s a huge overlap among the groups of plants that resist fire and those that sip water. Sedums, echinacea and wild blue flax are on the official fire-wise list. Bonus: They bloom.
• Fire-wise plants are tidy. In other words, they don’t accumulate large amounts of dead branches, bark, needles or leaves. If your trees are the opposite of tidy, wield that rake and push that broom.
• Finally, there’s a lot of help out there for you if you live in the urban-wildland interface. The Colorado State Forest service and
Susan Clotfelter: 303-954-1078, sclotfelter@denverpost.com or twitter.com/susandigsin
