FIRESafe MARIN News

The Fire-Smart Sanctuary
Create a fire-smart sanctuary. By using sustainable and earth friendly garden practices, your garden can be a place for pollinators and insects to travel through, making it a pollinator corridor.  

Think Lean, Clean, and Green     

Here’s a fire-smart landscaping tip from UC Marin Master Gardeners.  Spring is the time to make your garden lean, clean, and green, and create a well maintained and defensible space around your property.  

1. Lean:  Keep plants thinned, pruned, and low growing. Have space between individual plants, or plant in small, irregular clusters or islands. Space trees so that at maturity the crowns are 10 feet apart or more.
2. Clean:  Remove fallen leaves and needles, dried grass, weeds, dead branches, and other dead vegetation. Check gutters, roof, eaves, vents and chimney for leaf and needle litter. Rake fallen leaves, then compost or remove.
3. Green:  Properly irrigated plants remain healthy and green summer through fall. Check your irrigation system regularly for leaks or malfunctions. 

Before each fire season, re-evaluate your lean, clean and green landscape. For more information on fire-smart landscaping see:  http://marinmg.ucanr.edu/Fire-smart_Landscaping/

Right Tree, Right Place.

A fire-smart landscape can have many types of trees. Remember the design of defensible spaces in your garden. Plan ahead. Space trees so that at maturity the canopies will have 10 feet of clearance from the roof and chimney. 

• Trees shade, cool, clean the air, sequester carbon, and support wildlife for an earth-friendly garden.
• Trees offer privacy, edible fruit, noise reduction, colorful flowers, and seasonal foliage.
• Select a tree adapted to your climate zone and your garden conditions.
• Consider maintenance. Evergreen trees produce fallen leaves and debris year-round. Deciduous or fruiting trees drop leaves or fruit annually.
• Thin trees so that the branches between trees or groupings of trees do not touch and have at least 10 ft. separation between groups of trees.

Questions about choosing and placing the right tree to create a fire-smart landscape?  Visit http://marinmg.ucanr.edu/Fire-smart_Landscaping/

Time to Prune! 

Here’s a fire-smart landscaping tip from U C Marin Master Gardeners. Reduce fuel load by pruning. Winter is a good time, especially for dormant or deciduous trees and shrubs.
Prune after the leaves drop and before the buds form.
Remember the 3 D’s: dead, damaged and diseased parts should be removed. 
Prune dead and twiggy overgrown shrubs like lavender
Remove tree branches at least6 feet from the ground orup to 1/3 of their height
Remove any limbs 10 feet from the chimney or roof and maintain separation between trees or groups of trees
Avoid topping trees and shearing hedges as this causes weak and twiggy growth and more fuel for a fire. 
Make your garden fire-smart by removing dead material and maintaining separation between your plants.  For more information on how and why to prune and specific plant requirements visit http://marinmg.ucanr.edu/Fire-smart_Landscaping/

Impacts and insights from our most ambitious program to date. Please view the 2020 Chipper Program Report. Recently published.

Plan your fire-smart garden. Consider the existing plants, budget, and how much maintenance you are willing to do. Start by understanding the defensible space zones.

• Zone 0: 0 – 5 feet from the house is the most important. Minimize combustible materials and vegetation and separate plants with non-combustible materials.
• Zone 1: 5- 30 feet from the house separate plantings and garden beds with hardscape and groundcovers to slow the spread of flames.
• Zone 2: 30 to 100 feet from the house can use larger shrubs and trees planted in widely spaced groups or “islands”. Consider the mature size of plants and shrubs to maintain spaces.

The U C Marin Master Gardener website can help choose the right plants for the right place for a healthy and fire-smart garden.  For more information go to http://marinmg.ucanr.edu/Fire-smart_Landscaping/

Plant Spacing in the Defensible Landscape.

A fire-smart gardening tip from UC Marin Master Gardeners. Space trees and shrubs in your garden to minimize the transmission of fire from one plant to another and ultimately your house.

-Right Plant, Right Place

U C Marin Master Gardeners always say to plant the “right plant in the right place” as a formula for success. In a fire-smart landscape there are no fire-resistant plants, since all plants can burn. Plants should be water wise and ecologically sound, well maintained and in good health. Add proper irrigation and maintenance, and keep them free of dead material and fallen leaves.

Maintaining a Fire-Smart Landscape

Fall is a great time to do fire-smart maintenance. Here are some tips from UC Marin Master Gardeners:

• Check gutters, roof, eaves, vents, and chimney for leaf and needle litter.
• Remember to clear branches 10 feet from the roof.
• Beyond 5 feet from all structures, apply composted wood mulch chips to feed the soil, control weeds in the spring, control soil erosion and enhance the appearance of your garden.
• Separate wood mulched areas with noncombustible materials such as granite, gravel and stone to create fuel breaks, discouraging fire from traveling along a continuous path.
• Rake-up and compost or remove fallen leaves and evergreen needles. The spots where leaves collect are where embers ignite a fire.
• Remove dead vegetation and dry grasses.
• Prune or remove plants to eliminate fuel ladders and to separate shrubs.

 Questions about creating a fire-smart landscape? Visit http://marinmg.ucanr.edu/Fire-smart_Landscaping/

As wildfires surged in 2017 and 2018 those of us in the climate and environmental community focused on the connection between wildfires and climate change. We noticed heat waves, melting snow earlier in the spring, alarming rise in state’s average temperature, and prolonged drought. Scientists agree that climate change has increased the length of the season and the frequency of extreme weather events. 

A leading climate scientist at University of California, Merced, estimated that the frequency of extreme wildfires would increase by nearly 50 percent if global greenhouse gas emissions continued at a high rate. At the same time other environmental organizations were raising concerns about the impact of wildfires on biodiversity and the ecology of Marin’s vegetation landscape.