A Tale of Two Firescapes
Jeff Powers, Laguna Canyon resident and landscape designer, did all the right things with his firescaping.
He thinned out the toyon and lemonade berry bushes surrounding his bluff-top house to reduce the fuel load available to an approaching fire. He cut off the bottom three or four feet of branches from the remainder to eliminate fire ladders and keep any fire close to the ground. He chipped the prunings into mulch and scattered it underneath the shrubs to cool the soil and prevent grasses and weeds from springing up again. And he planted succulents close to his house to further dampen the flames.
It worked.
Though Powers wasn’t on hand to witness it, other Canyon Acre residents said that the October, 1993, fire split when it encountered Powers’ firescaping and passed around the house without touching it.
The fact that his house ultimately did burn hasn’t shaken Powers’ faith one bit. (Sparks blew back up the canyon after the fire had passed his house and ignited his deck, as best he can surmise.)
The moral: Firescaping is only part of the solution. If Powers’ deck had been sheathed with a fire-retardant material, he says, he is certain his house would have been saved.
He is rebuilding on the same property and using the same approach in the landscaping.
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It wasn’t landscaping that saved John and Cindalee Hall’s ridge-top home last October; it was firefighters. The Halls didn’t have a firescape at that time. What they had was an inherently dangerous situation--native vegetation growing practically up to their back door. Fortunately they had taken the precaution of clearing a swath of the chaparral away shortly before fire raced up their slope last fall.
That cleared land made it easier for firefighters to defend their home. But the firebreak alone would not have saved it. Should there be a next time, they decided, their defenses would be stronger.
They approached local landscape architect Ann Christoph to develop a landscape that would be easier to defend in a fire but still be compatible with native vegetation.
Christoph’s design added a stone deck and spa at the rear of the house that gives the Halls an attractive location in which to enjoy their splendid view. But it also leaves more room for firefighters to maneuver should they be needed. A series of narrow terraces separated by gravel pathways now contours the slope below the deck, bringing in non-combustible materials to help deflect heat from the house in case of a fire.
Because the slope is very steep (40% to 50% grade) and fire would move up it rapidly, Christoph selected low-growing, highly fire-retardant plants for the terraces. She chose a collector’s assortment of unusual succulents and a few low-growing perennials such as Mexican evening primrose and Santa Barbara daisy.
Farther down the slope, past the non-combustible iron gate that keeps out deer, Christoph put in deep-rooted native shrubs to help stabilize the slope. Again, she chose low-growing varieties (California fuchsia, coyote bush, Encelia ) so that an approaching fire would find little fuel to consume.
To combat severe erosion occurring on one part of the slope, Christoph converted a gully into a water feature. She filled in the gully with rocks, created four concrete basins to collect the water flow, and planted Juncus , dwarf horsetail, and other water-loving plants around them to absorb much of it.
This wet zone will also help slow an approaching fire.
