Protect Your Home with Defensible Space

Proper landscape vegetation management will create defensible space and reduce potential property loss. Here are a few things to create defensible space around your home.

• Mow or weed-eat flammable vegetation, especially on steeper slopes to maintain 100 feet of defensible space around your home.
• After trimming trees, chip the waste and spread the chips.
• Select, arrange and maintain fire safe planting around your home.
• Replace flammable shake shingles with Class A roofing material.

Planting "the right plant in the right place" is important in landscaping, and it can influence plant flammability. When selecting landscape plants, consider the light, water, and soil requirements.

In addition to plant selection, plant spacing and maintenance are important in maintaining defensible space. Plants that are stressed have a higher percentage of dead leaves and branches, which significantly increases flammability. While some plants are more resistant to fire than others, any plant will burn under certain conditions.

For more information, view the Fire Safe Landscape website.

For plants with a low moisture and identified as a low fire hazard, view the following Plant List.

Create Defensible Space