Wildfire Preparation Tips For Rural Folks

Transcription

1 Wildfire Preparation Tips For Rural Folks Version 8/2015b Please copy and distribute as needed to your neighbors! Most of our NWPOA members are rural residents who live on rangeland or in forestland. There are many things we can do in preparation to avoid our structures falling victim to wildfire and somethings we should consider well ahead of any wildfire event. When a wildfire pops up very near our property it may be a little too late to consider what we can do to protect our home and valuables. This guide provides many tips that rural property owners will find useful when faced with a menacing wildfire. Flyer Production Sponsors: Your local fire department phone number - or Joe Dobson, Realty Cell: Specializing in Acreage, Country Property, Dream Home, Existing Home, Farm and Ranch and Investment Property Serving Athol, Coeur d Alene, Harrison, Hayden, Post Falls, Rathdrum, Saint Maries, & Liberty Lake Brokerage: Coldwell Banker, Schneidmiller Realty 1924 Northwest, Blvd, Coeur d Alene, Idaho Classic Foods Catering & Events Linda Northington Like us on Facebook With a wide variety of menu items, we cater any size and type of event. We proudly serve Scheffelmaier Meat products. Distribution Sponsor:

2 Sometimes being prepared works! Major Considerations A. Leaving to a safe place this is the #1 recommended action by wildfire response teams. It s one thing to gamble with your stuff, it s another to gamble with your life. Ultimately your stuff is just stuff, the safety of your loved ones should be your primary concern. Letting the paid professionals deal with the wildfire while you and your family are safe is a no brainer, regardless of what happens you ll all be together afterwards to rebuild and live out the remainder of your lives. It is important to remember, once you leave your home under a voluntary evacuation order you may NOT be allowed to return to your home. Why? Because public safety officials often close roadways in/out of wild fire areas. This means you need to plan now to insure you have everything that you ll need with you should you choose to leave. If you do leave, paint your cell phone number after the word owner on a large sign in front of your house, then if any responders would like to talk to you, they can reach you. You may be able to provide them with crucial information to help save your home and other structures. B. The right to remain with your home Idaho has two main types of evacuation orders, most often a voluntary or recommended evacuation order is issued. In Idaho, only the governor can issue a forced evacuation. During a forced evacuation, law enforcement has the power to forcibly remove you from your property and if you do not leave, you are breaking the law. Regardless of either order type, you should be 100% convinced that if you choose to stay in your home, you have no expectation that emergency services will come rescue you. If you stay, it will be important you have planned for every contingency that could pop up. Truly your life may hang in the balance if you guessed wrong. A government survey on how property owners feel about evacuating their home. C. Exit Paths some of us live in areas where there is only one roadway in/out to access our property. Obviously you need to insure that you get out before your primary way out becomes Page 2 of 9

3 unpassable. Fallen trees, wind driven flames, dense black smoke, burned away bridges, downed power lines are all factors. Don t gamble on the roadway being clear. D. Vehicle limitations - remember while your car or truck may shield you from the flames and heat while driving, your rubber tires will not last long and all the plastic and fiberglass parts of your car will quickly begin melting and catching fire. Many newer vehicles have plastic gas tanks that will quickly succumb to heat. If you end up in a situation where you become trapped by an advancing fire and are forced as a last resort to drive through an active fire, (flames on either side of you and no shelter in place options available) drive as quickly as possible through the fire because the amount of time before your tires catch on fire is limited, perhaps as short as a few hundred feet. And remember, asphalt driveways can sometimes burn too! Picture - A range fire crossing the highway caught these vehicles causing many to catch fire. E. Communication you should have communicated with family and friends what your intentions are before you are immediately faced with decisions and communication lines quit working. Landline and cell tower phone systems all have limitations and may also be consumed by fire. All of your family members should be able to answer the following questions; where should you meet up? Who can you call (some other unaffected location) that can relay messages between your family members? F. Roof Material in many fires having roofing material that is combustible is a significant factor to how a home catches fire from burning embers and debris carried thru the air. If you have untreated wood shake or aged fiberglass or asphalt shingles your home will have a greater risk of catching fire from flying embers. A metal, slate or concrete tile roof provides the best fire resistive materials. Remember to keep your roof and gutters free of leaves and debris. G. Well Water Considerations and Limitations - most of us are on our own water well with a water pump that has some limitations on how much water we will be able to use at any given time. Many wells will typically produce about gallons per minute (GPM), however some low yield wells may only produce 2-5 GPM. There are two documents that will let you know how much your water well will produce, the well drillers report will estimate the amount of water you can expect from the well, and your well pump owner s manual will tell you how much water you can expect based upon the depth and pressure you have it set at. Each exterior spigot will typically average about 5 GPM out of the hose. That means most people will only be able to run 4-6 sprinklers before the well pump is not capable of keeping up. Test run putting up sprinklers beforehand to know what works for your water system! H. Electrical Power depending upon the wild fire, the possibility of losing power is real. Without power, most of us will not have water, thus about half of us have some kind of backup generator. You should already know if your generator is big enough to run your water pump. For those of you who are electrically experienced, you need to make sure you do not back-feed into the power lines when you power your property with your generator. Do not run generators inside buildings because the carbon monoxide will kill anyone inside. I. Check your insurance coverage now make sure you have enough property and casualty insurance to provide for the replacement of your home and belongings should they be lost in a fire. Consider coverages for things like jewelry, weapons, precious metals, and other personal items of value. Do you have coverage for your tractor, trailers, etc.? Find out if you are provided coverage for temporary living while your home is being rebuilt. If you have livestock or crops, is the loss of Page 3 of 9

4 your livestock and/or crops covered? FYI, some major insurance companies hire their own wildfire response teams to help protect the properties of clients, it might be worth finding out if your insurance company has such a program. J. Wind if gas is what powers your car, then wind is what powers a wildfire. You always hear wildfire response teams talking about the success of their efforts being thwarted by the wind. In large wildfires, it is said that they create their own wind as the fire pulls in huge amounts of air to feed the flames. Wind not only easily drives flames from tree to tree and across roads and fire breaks, but it can also carry burning embers a mile or more away causing fires to spread very rapidly. The flames in a forest fire can be seen stretching over 100 with the wind. Likewise a range fire driven by wind can cover a mile in less than 15 minutes. K. Your local fire department needs While NWPOA is known for budget reviews of various taxing districts and other government entities, it is important that your local fire department be provided the equipment needed to fight fires. This will include one or more tanker trucks that can deliver 4-8,000 gallons of water to rural areas where no fire hydrants exist as well as a smaller 4-wheel drive 1-ton attack truck that allows them to drive off road to the location of the fire. L. Smoke kills too in the midst of a wild fire the danger is not only fire but smoke. If you cannot breathe you ll not be much use in saving your family or home. Lots of smoke usually means poor combustion, less wind and/or lots of materials burning. Less smoke means very good combustion, more wind, more intense heat, and usually a faster moving fire. If you have baled and stacked feed like hay and alfalfa, it will burn poorly producing a lot of smoke. Baled hay is very hard to put out once on fire. M. Wildfires move in more than one direction if you are involved with trying to fight a wild fire, be aware that it can easily move around you. You may put up a good defensive fight on the northwest corner of your property only to find it grew around either side of you and will soon have you surrounded. Situational awareness is vital, know when to call it quits and live to fight another day. How does your wildfire preparation stack up to others? Page 4 of 9

5 Low Cost Preparations 1. Cut and remove tall and dead grasses from around your buildings. Dead grass provides a ready source of fuel to easily start a fire around your home. 2. Remove dead leaves and needles from your roof and gutters. Flying embers just need to land on dead leaves or pine needles to get a fire started. 3. Remove flammable materials 30 away from structures. This includes not only plant life but things like patio furniture and barbecues with propane bottles. Anything that can catch fire from flying embers or by intense heat. 4. Have enough water hose and sprinklers handy in case you need them. Think about how you will space the sprinklers if needed. Sprinklers may use water in varying amounts from 1 GPM to 6 GPM. When setting up sprinklers you are not trying to put out a fire, but to keep it from starting so using sprinklers with lower flow rates will allow you to keep more areas wet. A 2 GPM sprinkler that covers a area should work. Normally yard facets (the kind buried in the ground) will provide more water pressure and flow than an exterior house mounted faucet. When you need more water pressure and flow (GPM) the yard type faucet is likely your best bet. More pressure lets you stand further away from the flames. 5. Large equipment - many rural folks have tractors or other equipment like a dozer or excavator. These can be very useful in firefighting. Neighbors should talk to one another about what resources they can share. If you decided you wanted to push away all vegetation around your home to protect it before the fire gets closer, you ll have that option, you can always replant next year. 6. Remove dead trees and branches by trimming away the lower dead branches from trees, removing dying or dead trees and clearing away bushes from against your home you may improve your odds of slowing or halting an advancing fire. 7. Prep your camper/travel trailer if you have a travel trailer, it might be useful to prep it and have it ready to go. 8. If you have livestock do you have somewhere you can take them and a method to accomplish moving them quickly if needed? What about feed and water after they are moved? 9. Fuel, oil, acetylene cutting torches, propane storage tanks are obviously a mixed blessing, handy when we need them readily near us and a real concern during a wildfire. Several options are worth considering: a) empty the tanks if possible, b) relocate them to somewhere away from your structures and into a clear area, c) build a shelter over and around them of concrete block and or metal, d) as a last resort set up a sprinkler to keep them wet and cool. Of course remove any vegetation that is near them. 10. Generator fuel - If you lose power and decide to run on a generator you ll need to make sure you have enough gas to keep your water pump running as long as needed. 11. Prepare your bug out list you will need to take things like medications, a form of identification, cash and credit cards, cell phone and cell phone charger. Prescription or reading glasses, hearing aids, pets, pet food, computer back-up drive and or laptop. Obviously most of the stuff in our homes is dear to us or we wouldn t have it, but you ll need to take just what you need and can quickly grab. See the bug-out form at the end of this flyer. 12. Turn around and structure access primary to any response team being able to defend your home will be the ability to drive around it and turn around when needed. Make sure your driveway and the area around your structures has enough clear area to ensure firefighters can move around. Mark the area of your septic tank and field so fire trucks do not inadvertently drive over them and get stuck. 13. Attic and crawl space vents today it is not uncommon to find cheap plastic mesh as a screen material for vents. However this plastic screen easily melts during a fire and once melted provides Page 5 of 9

6 a path for burning embers to enter. Replace or overlay all plastic vent material with 1/8 to 1/4 max size metal screen. 14. Logging and dropping trees on the land around your home trees are nice when we need shade, but they provide the fuel for an advancing wildfire. You may decide to clear away all the trees for 50 to 100 around your structures as a precautionary measure. If you have time, drop the trees down and away from your home if the fire is headed your way. Having them down can reduce the amount of standing tree fire action near your home, but be aware that if these trees once dropped are not cut up and removed within a few weeks, their dying leaves and branches will provide a new source of wildfire fuel and could increase your fire danger at a later date. 15. Aquire a EMS radio scanner while often difficult to program unless you have a buddy who is experienced with radios and scanners, they can be very useful in keeping abreast of the firefighting activity of local, state, and federal agencies. There is nothing like listening to the fire agencies talk about what they are dealing with. Medium Cost Preparations a) Create a defensible buffer zone around your home (note increase this distance to 100 if you live on a significantly sloped property) while not pretty to some home owners, having nothing but gravel and or concrete around your home and shop for 30 all around them will greatly improve your home s ability to survive a wildfire. b) Build a fireproof storage box in your basement, garage or shop. For the handyman homeowner you can go to your local lumberyard and pickup 8 sheets of 5/8 type X sheet rock, some metal framing studs, and sheet rock screws to build a highly fire resistive box to store your keepsake or valuables in should your home actually be consumed by a wildfire. If you layer sheetrock 3-4 layers thick for the bottom, top, ends and sides you create a box that will stand up to several hours of fire because gypsum does not easily burn. You could also use cement tile backer board. You may not be able to take all of your pictures and guns with you, but you can easily build a fireproof storage box for about $150 to provide a place to store stuff if needed. If nothing else, such a box will greatly increase the odds of some of your stuff surviving. c) Wood decks and awnings are certainly a source for ignition from burning embers, especially decks that are old and/or have been treated with flammable sealers. Consider replacing wooden decks with concrete patios, applying fire-retardant treatments or rebuilding it out of cement based deck products. d) Metal window covers many windows today are made of plastic frames which deform when subjected to intense heat. It may be worthwhile to build removable heat shields that stick out about 4 away from the windows to protect them from the heat. This would also be true for wood or fiberglass exterior doors. Corrugated metal roof panels can make good heat shields and can be customized for each location and size needed. e) Rechargeable water extinguisher not much use for a wildfire, but very useful around your home to prevent a fire from spreading. They cost about $100 and you can refill them with water and charge them with your own air compressor. Page 6 of 9

7 f) Roof sprinkler system even though I have a metal roof, I live in the dense forest, so I installed a permanent sprinkler system on my roof that I can quickly connect to two water hoses to keep my roof and the area around my house wet. There are very important design considerations with regards to required pressures, flows, sprinkler types, etc. that make this a bit of an engineering project to insure it will work property when completed, but it does provide me with some piece of mind. I ran the poly tubing along the snow breaks I had already installed on my metal roof. In our climate it will be important to drain out all water from the lines because of winter freezing. Contact NWPOA if you need design help. Higher Cost Preparations I. Root / storm cellar in tornado country a storm cellar is pretty standard for many rural homes. A well-built root cellar with no exposed wood may also serve as a good alternative. Not only does a storm cellar provide a good place to store valuables that would need protected in the event of a wildfire, but if built properly, it can serve as an emergency shelter should you become trapped. I cannot stress enough the peace of mind that comes from having an emergency storm shelter to anyone who finds themselves needing one. With all of the food storage and canning II. III. IV. rural folks do, making it double as a root cellar is a no brainer. Acquire one or more large fire proof safes if you want your important documents and valuables to remain home and withstand a fire, you ll either need to have them buried or have one or more heavy safes. Depending upon your need (size) fire rated safes will cost thousands of dollars. I know two homeowners who actually built solid concrete walk-in vaults with bank style doors to protect their valuables from every possible situation. These secure rooms also serve as saferooms to protect family members from intruders. Onsite water storage whether you need the water or the firefighters who come to protect your property, the more water you all have nearby the better for everyone concerned. Water tanks run about $1 p/gallon to purchase new and about half that price when used. If you plan ahead, you can fill them using rain water runoff from your house or shop. Of course you will want to keep a tarp over open tanks to keep mosquitos from breeding. Some people use the plastic septic tanks for water storage. Firetrucks can pump right out of your tank! Portable firefighting rig best to go in together with a neighbor (cost is about $2000 +/-) or do it on your own. I built a 275 gal unit that averages 50-70psi and is capable of refilling itself from any nearby water source. It will shoot water from two fixed but adjustable nozzles up to 60 away. It fits in the back of my pickup or in my loader bucket allowing me to get it anywhere I need to get it. (pic far right) I also found a trailer built unit on the web. Contact Bob for more information. Page 7 of 9

8 After you have read through this the first time, discuss with your other family members what items you want to do, when you want to get them done and then do them. Highlight or check each item and work towards completing them. If you need some advice talk to your local fire department or contact NWPOA. We have attached a bug out list form you can complete in advance. Good fire resistive exterior building materials = Brick Metal Concrete Stucco Gypsum Cement board siding like hardi-plank Poor or fire weak exterior building materials = wood siding treated with linseed oil, (often thinned with turpentine or mineral spirits making it highly flammable), exposed natural wood siding like cedar, and vinyl siding. None of us is going to be able to do all of these things, choose the ones you feel would be most effective for your situation, your ability and your financial resources. Ask for help! For other tips and information check with your local fire department and visit the firewise website. This link below is dedicated to wildfire information, it has a lot of current and interesting information. and maps and lists of active fires here Wildfire temps - An average surface fire on the forest floor will have temperatures reaching about 1,500 F or more. However in more extreme conditions with tall tree fire, the temperature can easily climb above 2200 F. Temperatures above 3000 F have been recorded in what is described as superheated wildfire conditions. A property owner seeking to protect his property will often underestimate the effects of radiant heat emanating from a wildfire. A 1969 study by the forest service estimated 40% of the average wildfire is radiant heat. Radiant heat is what slaps you in the face near the bonfire when you are trying to roast your marshmallow. You re not over or in the fire, but the heat radiating from it, is certainly making you keep your distance. Imagine that times several hundred percent larger and you ll understand why you do not want to get caught in or near a wildfire. I ve witnessed a tree stump catching on fire 20 away from a burn pile by radiant heat. May God bless and protect our firefighters! Page 8 of 9

9 Our Bug Out List Our agreed meetup location if we lose contact is Our agreed call to person and their phone number of someone well outside the fire danger area is ph # Things to remember to take with us 1. Prescription medications 2. Identification, wallet and purse. 3. Insurance information 4. Cell phones and chargers 5. Some clothing 6. Other important documents 7. Laptop and or backup harddrives. 8. Certain irreplacable valuables Things to do prior to bugging out 1. Turn off gas or propane lines to the house 2. Arrange acomodations for livestock and domesticated animals 3. Discuss having sprinklers running. 4. Locate flamable liguids/gases in a safer place if possible Emergency very last resort you are caught in the fire what you do will be dependent upon the conditions. Wildfire crews are provided a reflective body sized shelter that is very thin and light. The reflective covering helps fight off radiant heat. They are instructed that if they can get near a stream, other low lying area that has already burnt through or an open area like a dirt road with less expected fire actiivty they are taught to hunker down there and not to get out of the shelter for any reason. If you have the ability dig a hole in the ground 3-4 down, to grab a bunch of tin foil, and/or several chunks of roof metal, to grab lots of wet towels, to get next to water, or put something solid that doesn t burn between you and the fire, (like a large boulder) you ll be doing the best you can. Preferably you will not hunker down under trees that will burn for longer periods of time than ground vegitation and rain down burning branches on you. If you have a metal stock tank you can flip over that would be a usefull radiant heat shield. Regardless of what you do, its gonna be like being in an oven. One thing is for sure, you re never going to forget the expereince and even if you do not believe in God, you will be making deals with Him the closer the flames come. Disclaimer the information contained in this handout is not meant to be profesonal advice and it may not apply to your situation. For specifc guidance to your situation, readers are advised to seek advice from qualified profesionals. Users are advised to consider and use this information at your own risk. Page 9 of 9