In California, catastrophic wildfires have destroyed entire communities, with more than 6800 structures destroyed in the Los Angeles Palisades Fire alone. While living with wildfire can be a difficult and scary experience, building defensible space and hardening your home are crucial ways to reduce your fire risk and improve the safety of yourself and first responders. Watch the video below to see how defensible space and home hardening can save your home during a wildfire.
One way to prepare your home for wildfire is to create defensible space around your home. Defensible space is a buffer area designed to slow or stop the spread of flames, heat, and embers, and is created through reducing the amount and continuity of vegetation around your home. Creating and maintaining an effective defensible space not only reduces the risk of wildfire damage to your property, but also enhances the ability of firefighters to protect your home. Your local fire department’s defensible space inspections can help you to address your property’s specific wildfire risks.
Home hardening is a second crucial way to prepare your home for wildfire. Most homes that burn during a wildfire are ignited by wind-carried embers, which can ignite nearby combustible materials or enter your home directly through vents or windows. Building or retrofitting your home with noncombustible materials and reducing entry points for embers into your home can reduce your home’s vulnerability to wildfire.
Don’t know where to start? Check out the Diablo Fire Safe Council’s guide to getting started with home wildfire safety.
See below for current defensible space and home hardening requirements and recommendations.
Skills: Permitting, conservation on agricultural land, illegal dumping prevention.
Fun Fact: Eagle Scout, former member of the University of California Marching Band, aspiring birder, and a Contra Costa native raised in Southern California.
Ben started working with Contra Costa RCD in January 2017 after receiving two Masters degrees from Indiana University in Natural Resource Management and Environmental Policy following undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley. Ben manages the Voluntary Local Program, the EcoStewards Program, and other conservation programs focused on agricultural lands.
Skills: Rangeland ecology and management, fire ecology, California plant identification, data management and analysis.
Fun Fact: Puts buffalo sauce on everything, is passionate about native plant horticulture, and loves tiny plants and fungi.
Zoë grew up in the South Bay Area, where much of her childhood was spent hiking and exploring the local regional parks with her mom. Having grown up in a wildland urban interface community, Zoë is interested in the impact of wildfire on California ecosystems and communities, and aims to both restore historical fire regimes to Bay Area landscapes as well as promote the equitable allocation of fire preparedness, management, and mitigation resources.
Zoë received degrees in Ecology and Psychology from UC Santa Barbara, where she completed an undergraduate thesis exploring how leaf traits can be used to predict fire severity in Southern California forests. Her passion for wildfire ecology and fondness for Bay Area grassland and oak woodland landscapes led her to pursue a master's degree in Rangeland Management at UC Berkeley, where her studies focused on rangeland plant ecology, wildfire and prescribed fire on rangelands, grazing management, and the ways in which people and the environment influence each other. Zoë looks forward to using her ecological knowledge and her passion for environmental justice in her work managing and utilizing fire with the RCD.
Skills: CA Native Plant Identification, Fire Ecology, Environmental Education, Community Outreach, and ARCGIS and other ESRI services.
Fun Fact: I have a Pitbull puppy who my life revolves around, and am a very passionate SF Giants fan as I love baseball, both watching and playing!
Joe has joined the Contra Costa Resource Conservation District following an undergraduate degree in Forestry and Natural Resources with an emphasis in Fire Ecology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. As an East Bay native, I grew up exploring all around the wonderful natural areas the Bay Area has to offer and I am extremely excited to begin serving my local communities. Before joining the team, I served a separate Americorp term at a local fire department which gave me a great insight into the world of vegetation management, community education, and community engagement. I'm very eager to bring my knowledge and skills to the team, and look forward to educating, supporting, and implementing positive change in and around my home.
