The Role Of Trees In Outside Fire Mitigation


The trees on your property can play a major role in slowing or completely preventing an outside fire from reaching your home. Here is a look at what you can do to make sure the trees around your home keep fire away, rather than help it spread.

How Trees Can Contribute to a House Fire

You don't need to live in a wildfire-prone area to start thinking about the role your property's trees can play in home safety and fire mitigation. A fire from a neighbor's home can easily spread to yours if you don't do what you can to mitigate that possibility.

If you have a lot of dense trees around your home, then you should start thinking about what that could mean if a fire started. Start by looking at those closest to your home.

Trees, limbs, and branches too close to your home can contribute to setting your roof on fire. Dead or dried out trees can combust fast and spread the fire faster than many people believe. Fire mitigation services typically recognize three levels of fire fuels, and a tree can create all three of them:

  • Ground fuels – Dead and dried leaves, branches, etc. at the ground level
  • Ladder fuels – Lower hanging branches or dead trees that allow the fire to climb upwards
  • Top fuels – Tree canopies that allow fire to spread from tree to tree and to roofs

Don't let these types of hazards linger too close to your home.

How Trees Can Help Prevent a House Fire

You don't have to get rid of your trees. Instead, you can turn a potential hazard into a safety measure for your home. Your trees can help form a defensible space, which means a clear area around your home that stands between it and fire. For example:

  • Space between trees can create a stopping point where the fire can go no further.
  • Properly trimmed trees can keep a fire from surging upwards.

Since many people live in spaces close to others, it's important that everybody works together to maintain the defensible space. For those that live in a forested area with no immediate neighbors, it's just as important that they put the work in to keep that space clear.

A professional tree trimming service can help you deal with the hazards presented by trees to close to your home. At the same time, the service can also help you transform your trees into a safety feature. 

About Me

how to identify tree illnesses and infestations

I spent my youth in the city, but when I got married, I moved out into the country with my new husband. We bought a house on a beautiful, wooded piece of land. It is the sanctuary that I had been missing all of my life. Unfortunately, having not grown up around trees, I was unaware of the fact that several of the trees were being killed by a nasty little beetle. Since those trees were removed, I have taken the time to learn how to identify tree illnesses and infestations before they become so serious that the trees need to be removed. Find out how to identify these issues here on my blog.

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