Greenery Can Help Make Your Home Fire-Resistant

Concerned that your home may be damaged by brush fires?

Here’s a sampling of sources that can provide information on how to convert your yard into a “firescape,” a landscape consisting of fire-retardant, native plants, shrubs and trees, such as succulents, low-growing perennials (California fuchsia, coyote bush, Encelia, Mexican evening primrose and Santa Barbara daisy), and native oaks and sycamores.

Other ways to make your home flame-resistant are also detailed, including:

* clearing away highly flammable vegetation--such as pines, palms, cedar, cypress, juniper, spruce, bougainvillea and pampas grass;

* creating space between trees and plants to deprive a spreading fire of a continuous fuel supply;

* building a wet zone--gullies, ponds and streams--that slow an approaching fire;

* removing deadwood and debris from the yards;

* storing lumber and firewood away from buildings;

* and trimming tree branches to prevent flames from jumping from the ground to treetops and onto the roof.

For more information, contact:

* the Wildland Management Hazard Reduction Section of the Orange County Fire Authority, which has literature and specific questions and answers about fire-retardant landscaping. (714) 744-0500.

* the California Department of Forestry publishes a brochure, “Fire Safe--Inside & Out.” Write CDF Southern Region, 2524 Mulberry St., Riverside, CA 92501. (909) 782-4140. Free.

* Fire Station No. 7 in Santa Barbara has a firescape demonstration garden, 2411 Stanwood Drive, Santa Barbara. (805) 965-5254.

* Maureen Gilmer wrote “California Wildfire Landscaping,” a handbook on dealing with wildfires--before, during and after--including creating bands of protection with plants (Taylor Publishing, $10.95).