The New Mexico Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Forestry Division and its fire prevention partners in the southwest kicked off the Southwest Wildfire Awareness Week on Monday. Scott Brocato spoke with George Ducker with the New Mexico Forestry Division about the event, and about several ways to be fire-safe this spring.
SCOTT BROCATO:
What will be some of the activities involved this week?
GEORGE DUCKER:
Well, this is an agency-wide effort, and it includes our partners at the federal level and in Arizona as well. And really, it's a lot of social media messaging and kind of putting out public service announcements to remind everyone that while wildfire season really is year-round In New Mexico, we're beginning to enter into the critical time of the year, where preparing your home and your property can really help to reduce your wildfire risk. It's only going to get warmer and drier. And those April winds could certainly play a factor as well.
SCOTT BROCATO:
Well, on the EMNRD's website, emnrd.nm.gov, it goes into detail about the importance of the Home Ignition Zone, or HIZ. What is the Home Ignition Zone?
GEORGE DUCKER:
The Home Ignition Zone is a way of thinking about defending your home and your property from wildfire. There's three zones: the first is zero to ten feet from your structure. The second is 10 to 30 feet away, and the third is 30 to 100 feet away. It's kind of like a series of moats around a castle, and the idea is to reduce vegetation in these areas in a way that will keep ember showers or direct flame contact from reaching your home.
SCOTT BROCATO:
And what are some steps on the Home Ignition Zone checklist to make one's home safer from embers and radiant heat?
GEORGE DUCKER:
Think of it like triaging your property. The goal is to slow the fire’s progress the closer it gets to your home. And you want to do this by keeping your grass cut, by pruning tree lambs and foliage that are close to the ground level. And what you're doing is creating what we call “defensible space,” creating brakes in the nearby fuels that will reduce the chance that fire could spread to your structure.
It's important to consider fire and to think about how wildfire actually functions. Typically, it's not a wall of flame that rushes over your home and incinerates it. It's the tiny embers of burning trees and shrubs, and these get pushed by the wind. Now these flaming hot embers can travel up to a mile ahead of the fire’s front, and the embers can get lodged in your gutters and your door, your window frames, and in the trees and shrubs near your home. So you want to think less about a giant wave of fire, and more about lots of tiny super-hot embers and where they might land and what kind of fuel they'll have to feed on near your home.
But the area within 10 feet of your home, zero to 10 feet, this is probably the most important area. You want to keep anything green from touching your home: plants, shrubs, tall grasses. You’ve got to try to keep these trimmed down, or just maybe get rid of them completely. Scientists with the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety have been making models for years about this. And what they've learned is that when embers get spat out from the fire, and land near your siding or the walls of your home, that these super-hot embers are actually the leading cause of home damage and even destruction.
SCOTT BROCATO:
What are some other fire prevention tips to be fire safe when you're camping or you're driving or working in your backyard?
GEORGE DUCKER:
I think I've got one word here, and the word is “wind.” Be really aware if it's windy outside, and maybe consider whether you're going to build that campfire or whether you're wanting to work out in your backyard with tools and equipment. These are things that can create sparks and, as we discussed, wind is one of the big things that will move those sparks across the landscape. I guess you could call it being wind aware. But if you are camping and not that windy of a day, make sure to bring extra water, and make sure that those campfire coals are out when you're done. If you can touch them, if you can touch the coals with the back of your hand, then you're in good shape. Make sure you keep your toe chains tight. If you're towing RV's or equipment, dragging tow chains can send off sparks into the grass and alongside the road.
SCOTT BROCATO:
On your website there's also the Ready Set Go program. What is that?
GEORGE DUCKER:
So this is a program that stresses being ready to basically evacuate in the event of a fast-moving emergency. And it comes in three stages. Being “ready” is kind of what we discussed earlier about preparing your property against wildfire.
Getting “set” means collecting items into what we call a “go bag”. If you're going to be evacuated from your home, you're not going to have a whole lot of time and it's good to plan ahead. And so you can prep that go bag with prescriptions, batteries, and changes of clothes and copies of any important documents. You may end up being away from your home for days or even weeks, and having some of these supplies already gathered up will help you just have one less thing to worry about in the event of an evacuation.
Now “go” means to know where the evacuation centers are in your area. And if you have a large family, perhaps you want to agree on a meeting spot, maybe closer to town or in an area you're all familiar with. Cell service can be one of the first things to go in a wildfire event, and it's good for everyone in your household to kind of already have an idea of where a meet up point would be in the case of an evacuation.
SCOTT BROCATO:
George Ducker, thank you so much for speaking with us about this on KRWG Public Media.
GEORGE DUCKER:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
