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The Florida Division of Forestry and the South Walton Fire District are continuing our partnership to prevent wildfires in South Walton. Areas of focus will be education, planning and mitigation.
• Education of our citizens will be conducted in many forums.
- Web based information at www.swfd.org
- Town hall type meetings for information dissemination.
- A door to door campaign of affected areas scheduled for mitigation.
• Planning between departments and with our citizens
- Inter-department training.
- Inter-department coordination of efforts
- Citizen outreach for property mitigation
• Mitigation of hazard areas.
- Specific areas as defined by FDOF will be scheduled for mitigation of dense and volatile fuels by prescribed fire and
mechanical thinning.
- Coordinated efforts with affected citizens, businesses, and facilities will be scheduled and publicized.
During the dry spring weather this year Florida was plagued by wildfires. The massive “Bugaboo Fire” that started in Georgia, seriously threatened Lake City in April. Wildfires in May, destroyed 3 houses and damaged 12 others in the Seagrove Beach area. Wildfire is a natural force in Florida’s forests, but can be very damaging. A coordinated, community-wide planning effort can be very helpful in both fire prevention and fire response.
Northwest Florida Dry Season Safety Tips
According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, homeowners should take a few key steps to protect their homes from wildfires:
- Keep a "defensible space" of 30 feet around your home free of dense groups of trees and other potential fire fuel. If you don't have 30 feet, work with what you have.
- Keep roof gutters clear of dried leaves, pine needles, branches and other debris.
- Store combustibles such as gasoline a safe distance from the home.
- Remove vines attached to your home that could carry fire to the roof.
- Remove flammable plants such as palmetto and wax myrtle within 30 feet of your home.
- Use fire-resistant material for your roof, including tile or metal.
- Keep your yard well-trimmed and watered.
- Install water sprinklers on your roof.
- Trim tree branches so they're at least 10 feet from the ground.
How to Have a FireWise Home:
Much of what is known about protecting homes from wildland fire is based upon the work of Jack Cohen, a Fire Research Scientist at the U.S. Forest Service Fire Lab in Missoula, Montana. Jack has been studying wildfires for almost 30 years. His research and field investigations support some interesting explanations for home losses associated with wildland/urban interface fires. Cohen has found that most willdland/urban interface homes are lost because of ignitions associated with the two most vulnerable parts of a home:
1. The roof.
2. The area immediately surrounding the structure.
Cohen's research results indicate that home ignitions usually occur over relatively short distances---tens of yards, not hundreds of feet from little things associated with either:
• Fire brands landing on and around the structure, or
• Flames from slow-moving, low-intensity surface fires contacting flammable portions of the structure.
This means that the homeowner can play a significant role in reducing home losses from wildfires by reducing fuels and through careful landscaping in what Cohen calls the "home ignition zone', an area that extends outward from the home 100 - 200 feet in all directions. Research has shown that the home ignition zone principally determines the potential for home ignitions during severe wildfires.
"Case studies indicate that the most critical area is a zone of "defensible space" within 30 feet of the structure."
Maintaining a lean, clean, and green landscape within 30 feet of a structure can make a significant difference in whether it survives a wildfire. The important thing is that action must be taken before wildfire threatens.
• Lean - small amounts of flammable vegetation
• Clean - no accumulations of dead vegetation
• Green - plants are healthy and green; lawn is well irrigated
Reducing fuel within the defensible space means creating a landscape that breaks up the continuity of brush and other vegetation that could bring wildfire in contact with any flammable portion of the structure. This may involve:
• eliminating any flammable vegetation in contact with the structure
• thinning out trees and shrubs so there is 10 to15 feet between the tree crowns
• pruning tree limbs to a height of 6 to10 feet
• replacing highly-flammable landscape material with plant materials having a higher water content
• replacing flammable mulch adjacent the structure with gravel or rock eliminating "ladder fuels" near the structure that might carry a surface fire to the roof or eaves
Fire is a natural part of our Florida ecosystems. It is not a matter of if we are going to have wildfires, but when will we have wildfires and at what intensity. Homeowners must assume a major role in wildfire protection by taking action to reduce the ignitability of their homes before the threat of a wildfire.
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fire prevention and life safety