Edwards is a Chico State botanist; Schleiger, a plant ecologist whose Magalia house survived the Camp Fire, teaches at both Chico State and Butte College. Their book, “Firescaping Your Home: A Manual For Readiness In Wildfire Country” ($29.99 in paperback from Timber Press; also for Amazon Kindle) gives readers clear guidance about hardening one’s home, creating defensible space, and planting fire-safe gardens.
In full-color pages the authors offer a catalog of hundreds of native plant species that might slow a fire, in part by catching embers. They also discuss how fire behaves and how to think in terms of fire-suppression zones.
Five feet around the house should be a “noncombustible zone” (no organic mulch or wood chips); next come the “green zone,” the “fuel reduction zone” and, finally, beyond 100 or 300 feet, the “habitat zone.” Details on how to maintain each zone guide even a WUI novice and come not only from the authors’ expertise but from lived experience (before Edwards replaced her old roof tiles a baby possum fell through a hole—an open door for embers).
“A powerful key to protecting your home in wildfire-prone areas,” the authors write, “is to learn how vegetation and structures affect wind patterns” and to consider using a “fire shelterbelt,” windbreaks of “fire-resistent (hydrated) trees and shrubs” that can “reduce wind, flying embers, and firebrands.”
Bottom line: “We must recognize that protecting homes and families is not about controlling wildfire but rather reducing the flammability of our homes, landscapes, and communities.” The use of prescribed burns, and even letting some wildfires burn where the threat is small, draw on the wisdom of Native peoples. “Fire is something we can coexist and evolve with, moving into the future.”
