Dogs Days of Summer & Wildfire

[Cast-Iron]

As the summer's heat tends to dry up large areas of the US, I got to wondering what the other rural members here are doing for improving their homes survivability in the event of a major uncontrolled fire event, aka wildfire?

I remember seeing a picture from last year's record setting fire near Bastrop, Texas. It showed the charred remains of what was once a masonry home. Limestone walls still standing with a complete loss of the home and its contents. Since the roof was gone and the photos showed no evidence of a metal roof, I am left to assume it was an asphalt impregnated shingle type roof. Even metal roofs with wooden facia and/or rakes offer an ignition source for a fire of that scale or magnitude.

I am no expert on this, but I always have concerns that I attempt to address by doing an evaluation of range conditions and maintaining an appropriate perimeter of low combustible materials based on my best risk assesment. My thought is it is best to allow the fire to burn through without damaging any buildings. Here are some of the things I do to lower my exposure:

Move anything that will burn well away from the outside walls of the building (garden hoses, lawn furniture, propane bottles...).

I also trim back tree limbs keeping several feet of clearance between the foliage and the structure. I also prune the limbs up so I can walk freely beneath the drip-line.

I have no evergreen plants within 20' of the building. Many of these have high oil contents and will burn intensely even when green.

Keep the lawn/landscape cut short so it cannot sustain a fire of much intensity.

If someone here has greater expertise or experience with this I would appreciate a review or suggestion(s) of anything I may be missing in my wildfire "remediation" efforts.

[crashdive123]

If I lived in a remote area, I believe that rooftop sprinklers would be part of my planning.