Global Courant
As wildfires rage across Canada in what is being called an unprecedented season, one expert says individuals and communities can do more to adapt and prevent wildfires from causing widespread devastation.
“There’s an enormous amount we could do preemptively,” Blair Feltmate, chief of the Intact Center on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, told CTVNews.ca in a telephone interview.
“The problem I find is that people usually wait until there’s floods or fires or whatever, and they say, ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ And if your house is on fire, there’s not much you can do.”
TIPS FOR INDIVIDUALS
The Intact Center on Climate Adaptation and FireSmart Canada have released a guide outlining three key steps — expected to cost anywhere from $0 to $30,000 — homeowners can take to mitigate damage and disruption from wildfires.
First, the guide suggests servicing your home at least twice a year, which is estimated to cost about $300 if you do it alone.
This includes removing all combustible materials such as firewood and lumber stored within 10 feet of your home’s perimeter and under the decks, as well as removing all combustible ground covers such as mulch, plants, and shrubs within 5 to 6 feet of the circumference.
“Because the fire comes up, the brush ignites, that heat goes into the house and that house burns down. So you throw that flammable material away and replace it with river rock or other attractive material that doesn’t burn,” explains Feltmate.
Some other measures homeowners can take include removing needles, leaves, and other debris from gutters, roof surfaces, decks, and balconies, cleaning vents regularly, and growing low-growing, well-spaced, and fire-resistant plants.
The second step suggests making simple upgrades to your home, estimated to cost between $300 and $3,000.
These upgrades include replacing weatherstripping on all doors, including garage doors, adding a three-millimeter non-combustible screen to all exterior vents except dryer vents, and installing non-combustible ground covers within five feet of the house.
Also, wooden fences should be ditched and replaced with non-combustible fencing material such as chain link, stone or metal, Feltmate said.
“You don’t want wooden fences around your house, because a wooden fence that goes anywhere near the house actually functions as a conduit when it ignites (and a fire can start) along the fence to the house,” he said. .
The third step is more expensive — estimated at a $3,000 to $30,000 price tag — and involves completing more complex upgrades to your home.
This includes installing fire-resistant roofing, installing non-combustible facade cladding, installing multi-pane or tempered glass and fire-resistant doors, retrofitting decking and removing coniferous trees that are within 10 meters of your home.
“These are the things that catch fire very easily and the heat transfers to the house,” said Feltmate.
The guide notes that not all actions will apply to every home and that following these steps does not guarantee fire prevention.
TIPS FOR COMMUNITIES
The Intact Center on Climate Adaptation also has a guide to several actions communities can take to strengthen their wildfire preparedness.
To ensure that structures and infrastructure are fit for wildfires, it recommends that communities regularly maintain structures, infrastructure and landscaping within a 10-meter radius to limit the buildup of combustible materials, along with building and updating structures and infrastructure using fire-resistant materials such as metal or concrete hydropiles, among other measures.
It is also important to design and update structures and infrastructure to be ignition resistant, such as a distance of at least five meters between vegetation and power lines and simple roof lines.
To design a wildfire-ready community, the guide offers some suggestions, including integrating firebreaks at least 100 feet wide with ignition-resistant materials to prevent the spread of fire and limit development in wildfire-prone areas .
If you’re building a new structure, Feltmate said it’s best to make sure there’s at least 10 feet of distance between the structure and other structures to prevent the spread of fire.
“The heat from one house, if it catches fire, transfers to the next and it’s like a domino effect, so you want the houses to be separate,” he added.
Finally, the guide provides tips for a community’s wildfire emergency response.
It recommends that wildland firefighters and structural firefighters complete annual emergency planning and cross-training exercises involving multiple agencies, with at least one emergency shelter designated per community, and that adequate water is provided for firefighting.
Providing two or more entry and exit routes is also crucial, Feltmate said, so people can evacuate safely and quickly if there is a wildfire in their community.
“There’s a lot that can be done that isn’t being done,” he added.
