WILDLAND FIRES – URBAN INTERFACE
Urban Interface Preparation
Wildland fire Prevention
Urban interface fires are those fires that occur where a modern housing structure is built within a forestry zone. Here are some tips to help prevent fires in this situation.
- Create a fire-safe, defensible space. The space around your house and out buildings should be no less than 10 metres of clear space with no trees or brush.
- Eliminate fire dangers:
- Install a fire resistant roof, i.e. metal or clay tiles.
- Maintain your roof by cleaning it and the gutter regularly.
- Do not store firewood against the house or outbuildings
- If you burn wood for heat, install a spark arrestor on your chimney
- Clean your chimney regularly and at least once a year.
- Do not store flammable liquids, paints, solvents, oils etc in or near the house or outbuildings. Store them in a steel cabinet with locking doors.
- House identifying numbers should be at least 10cm high and visible from both directions on your street and day or night, so that emergency crews can easily identify your property.
- Clear all dead trees and brush from around your house and outbuildings each spring.
- Cut the grass around the house and outbuildings regularly.
- Composting bins and piles should be at least 10 metres from any building.
- Your garden hose should be capable of reaching any side of your home and up on to the roof.
- Keep a ladder available to access the roof
- Discuss with your neighbours all of these tips and more. One home in a neighbourhood that is not properly protected from fire can put the entire community or wild land area at risk.
Make sure you are covered in case of forest or wild land fire encroachment onto your property and buildings.
Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan (CWRP) Juan De Fuca
This Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan (CWRP) examines wildfire risk in the Juan De Fuca (JDF) Electoral Area and makes recommendations for managing that risk in support of building resiliency to wildfire. The purpose of the plan is to identify pathways toward building a community resilient to wildfire, focusing on actions that are within the Capital Regional District’s (CRD) mandate and capacity. Wildfire resiliency is not a single destination with a defined roadmap. Although the recommendations made by the plan can each improve wildfire resiliency, many involve multiple values or long timeframes which deserve further consideration.
To be resilient means to recover from difficulty. In JDF, wildfire can cause great difficulties for people and communities. Emergency preparedness, wildfire response, vegetation management, community planning, and personal readiness are all important elements of building resiliency to wildfire. Being resilient doesn’t mean that wildfire will never impact JDF; instead, it means that communities will emerge from a wildfire disaster intact and recognizable.
This plan is the result of a partnership between provincial and local governments that has allowed communities to access funding for community wildfire prevention since 2004. Funding for this plan was provided through the Community Resiliency Investment Program. The CWRP assesses risk within the wildland-urban interface (WUI), an area of land where natural vegetation and urban development are in proximity. The WUI is where wildfire can travel from wildland vegetation into JDF and is where there is the highest concern for potential wildfire activity. To create the CWRP, professional foresters visited public lands in the WUI to create accurate maps of wildfire risk. Although wildfire risk is not assessed for private land, the recommendations of the CWRP are a resource for all residents of JDF.
Visit the BC Forestry websites for more information on
Current BC Wildfire Situation Dashboard