How you can be ready for wildfire season

How you can be ready for wildfire season
(April, 1999)

Brush fire prevention tips

With any type of disaster, you need to have a plan before the unexpected happens. At a minimum, you should address these questions: How you will receive alerts and warnings? What actions will you take upon receipt of those warnings? Where will you go? How will you get there? What will you take with you?

Check your insurance for adequate coverage. Perform on a regular basis, mitigation activities such as trimming trees back from the house. Create a line of defendable space around your home. Fire Departments recommend you have a minimum of a 30-foot non-combustible buffer zone around your home. This creates an area of protection around your home, and allows firefighters to safely work a fire near your home.

Practice wildfire safety

People start most wildfires. Promote and practice fire safety with all members of your family

Clearly mark all driveway entrances with name and address

Plan several escape routes away from your home both for car and on foot

Protect your home

Design and landscape your home with wildfire safety in mind. Allow a 30- foot buffer of non-combustible material around your home

Use non-combustible materials on the roof and regularly clean the roof and gutters

Teach family members how to use a fire extinguisher and install and regularly test smoke detectors

Inspect chimneys twice a year and clean them once a year

Rake leaves and dead limbs and twigs. Clear all flammable vegetation

Have a garden hose long enough to reach any area of your home and property

If you have a well, consider purchasing a small gas powered generator to drive your pump in case electricity is cut off

When wildfire threatens

Listen to the media or your NOAA Weather Alert radio for Civil Emergency Messages about where the danger is

Prepare your family, pets, and supplies in case you have to evacuate

If told to evacuate, DO SO IMMEDIATELY

Tell someone you are leaving and where you are going

Drive a route away from fire hazards and listen to public safety officials

Remember, the most important thing you can do is to prepare your family and your home before the unthinkable happens. Having an escape plan, annually updating your insurance, and creating defendable space around your home will tremendously improve your chances for surviving a wildfire event.

For a copy of "Save Your Home from Florida Wildfires," please write: State of Florida, Department of Community Affairs, Bureau of Recovery and Mitigation, 2555 Shumard Oak Boulevard, Tallahassee, Fl. 32399-2100 or call (850) 413-9884.

Links of interest
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Fire and Safety Directory
Fire Apparatus: The Magazine of Emergency Equipment
International Association of Wildland Fire

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