Have You Cleared Out Your Defensible Space?

As a homeowner, are you sometimes up at night worrying about dangers to your home? There seems to be no end to the natural disasters that crop up every year, whether that be tornadoes, heavy winds, fires or the like. All of these events have the potential of reducing your home to a pile of worthless rubble, and they could even pose a risk to your life.

There is a way for you to minimize the risk of these things happening to your home, and that is a concept called defensible space.

So, what is a defensible space? It is an area around your home where you cut back and trim vegetation so that wind and fire can’t use it either as fuel or as projectiles to damage your home.

For a defensible space, you divide the area into 3 circle shaped zones, reaching out 15 feet, 75 feet and then to the end of your property.

In the zone closest to your home, you will eliminate anything that is flammable, whether trees or bushes. In the next zone, you let some trees and bushes remain, but they need to be spread out. In the last zone, you only need to cut back as much as you want, but it is still good to limit buildup of dry, flammable material.