Fire season is fast approaching and with the verdant undergrowth from the winter’s heavy rains starting to fade, many of us are dreading the hot, dry months ahead. I have been evacuated from my home twice and now, each time the afternoon winds kick up, I’m reminded of frantically trying to round up my animals and other treasures, as the flames crested the hilltop and furiously bore down on my neighborhood.
My anxiety could sap some of the joy of living in this magnificent place, but I try instead to channel it into wise preparation. I am creating wide swaths of defensible space, limbing up my trees, and figuring how to limit ways embers could enter my home, starting with the simplest and cheapest such as cleaning the gutters and closing gaps where wind-blown sparks could lodge.
My good neighbor is starting to organize us into a Firewise community, and that bit of camaraderie and peer pressure inspires me to act on my good intentions. In my neighborhood, a few of us participated in Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training then started organizing the rest of the neighborhood around those principles. And now we are working toward Firewise recognition. These efforts have brought us together as neighbors looking out for each other in ways we had not done previously.
