Rural Fire Safety:  A Burning Issue

The Cattleman
By Lorie Woodward Cantu

When it comes to protecting rural homes and outbuildings, fire safety is more than stop, drop, and roll. To effectively protect their property, landowners must accurately assess the risks and avoid luxuriating in a false sense of security.

“One of the biggest mistakes that people make regarding fire prevention is holding on to the belief that ‘it will never happen to me,’” says, Rex Mott, assistant chief of the Stillwater (Oklahoma) Fire Department. “Through the years, fire prevention education has worked well. As a result, we don’t have as many fires as in the past causing people to become complacent.”

Complacency can cause people to ignore significant changes in the landscape that might increase the risk to their property. For instance, since the Conservation Reserve Program’s (CRP) advent in 1985, more than four million acres of marginal crop land in Texas have been converted to grass. Many times, homesteads that once were surrounded by cotton, wheat or grain sorghum fields, are now encircled by vast expanses of grass.

Mark Moseley, Texas’ Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative Coordinator for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) based in San Antonio, says, “CRP is one of the most popular and most effective federal conservation programs ever developed. It has changed the landscape in many parts of rural Texas. While the number of fires reported has not increased dramatically, anecdotal evidence, observation, and common sense indicate that houses surrounded by a high, fine fuel load, like that provided by grass, are subjected to a higher risk.”

James Gillespie, a NRCS Resource Team Leader based in Matador, Texas, says, “Grasslands are much more volatile than croplands. The CRP, particularly in the Rolling Plains, has connected a lot of native rangeland that previously was fragmented by cropland. Now, because of CRP there are large areas of continuous fuel, and under the right conditions, a fire can spread over a big area in a hurry.”

Three types of fires

In the NRCS’ vernacular, there are three main types of fire: a prescribed burn, an accidental fire and a wildfire. A prescribed burn is a fire that is purposely set within defined parameters to accomplish certain objectives, Gillespie says. For the NRCS to conduct a prescribed burn, the relative humidity must be at least 20 percent, the maximum wind speed cannot exceed 20 mph, and the air temperature cannot exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If any one of the conditions falls outside the parameters, the burn will not be conducted, Gillespie says.

An accidental fire is a fire started unintentionally, Gillespie explains. It could be initiated by unattended sparks from a welder, a discarded cigarette, or a myriad of other things. But many times, these accidental fires begin as “controlled burns,” set by untrained individuals who are attempting to mimic the results of prescribed burns, he says.

“There is no such thing as a controlled burn,” Gillespie, who is also a trained volunteer fireman, says. “With fire, there are just too many variables for anyone to ever think that a fire is under control. Prescribed burning is much more complicated and dangerous than it appears to a casual observer. No one should ever attempt a burn without proper training, proper planning, proper equipment and proper back up.”

A wildfire is a fire started by a natural act such as a lightning strike, he continues. Both wildfires and accidental fires must be fought under the prevailing atmospheric conditions, Gillespie says. High winds, high temperatures and low humidity – alone or in combination – can create dangerous fire conditions, and landowners are at the mercy of the individuals charged with controlling the blaze, which in rural areas is usually the volunteer fire department, he says.

Time matters

In firefighting, time is of the essence. According to Mott, a fire approximately doubles in size every two minutes.

“Many times people delay calling the fire department because they are convinced they can put the fire out – and then they discover they can’t,” Mott says. “By the time they call us and we get to them, these folks can be face-to-face with a big, unmanageable fire. It is best to call the fire department first, so its personnel can begin moving in your direction. The sooner firefighters can get to your property, the greater the chances of them putting out the fire and limiting the damage.”

While Mott recognizes that people want to defend their property, he recommends in most instances, people should call the fire department and evacuate as soon as possible.

“Homeowners usually don’t have the equipment or training to successfully fight a growing fire,” Mott says. “Conditions can change rapidly, and in a matter of minutes, homeowners can suddenly find that more than their property is in jeopardy.”

Response times can vary widely depending on the property’s location. The Stillwater Fire Department provides primary services to the city of Stillwater and cooperative services to an outlying rural area that covers 350 square miles. Within the city limits, the department’s response time is four minutes to six minutes, Mott says. In some of the outlying areas, it takes the department up to 20 minutes to reach the property, he says.

Fire breaks

In the case of homesteads surrounded by CRP grass, landowners can buy time for their local fire department by keeping the grass shredded, Gillespie explains.

“We recommend that land-owners keep the grass – within 300 feet to 500 feet of their homes — shredded low all the time,” he says. “This reduces the fine fuel load, which in turn reduces the intensity of any approaching fire, making it more manageable.” Before shredding, landowners should check with their local Farm Services Agency and/or NRCS office to ensure that CRP compliance is being maintained and that the rules for critical nesting habitat are not being violated, he cautions.

Landowners, with a slight modification to their CRP contract, can also install fire breaks to help protect their homes and outbuildings. To build a fire break, landowners must remove a wide strip of vegetation, down to the mineral soil, around their homes or the area they want to protect, Gillespie says. The mineral strip’s width depends on the height of the adjoining grass, he says. If the mineral strip butts up to mowed CRP grass the fire break can probably be 15 feet to 25 feet wide; if the CRP grass is not mowed the mineral strip should be as wide as possible, he says.

While many people choose to plow the vegetation under, the buried, dead grass can ignite in an intense fire, he says. It is better to scrape the ground clean, if possible, he says. The local NRCS office can provide complete instructions on building an effective fire break.

“Fire breaks are very effective, but sometimes people don’t want to install them for aesthetic reasons,” Gillespie comments. “They don’t like the look of the bare ground, or they don’t like having the loose soil from the fire break blowing around. For those people, we suggest vegetated fire breaks, which prevent the soil from blowing.” Moseley says vegetated fire breaks do not violate the CRP contract as long as the vegetation is classified as a non-commodity crop by the Farm Services Agency.

To make the fire break as effective as possible, landowners should also take into consideration the location of their shelter belts.

“A fire break should protect the shelter belt, too,” Gillespie says. “If a shelter belt catches on fire, the house will be quickly encircled by a tower of flames – and the likelihood of saving the house decreases dramatically.”

The best time to protect your house is before a fire is racing toward it, Mott says. In addition to installing fire breaks, there are other simple things that people can do to help protect their homes from fire.

Housekeeping to prevent fires

“First, take care of basic ‘housekeeping.’ In other words, reduce the fuel load close to your home,” he says. Making sure the yard is green and free of dead, volatile vegetation, keeping the gutters clean, and trimming long limbs so they don’t hang over the roof, can make a big difference.

“On farmsteads, sometimes we encounter old wooden barns that have fallen down, and the wood is just left in a pile near the house,” Mott says. “Most of the time, that old lumber pile is harmless, but, in case of a fire, that old barn will act like a stack of kindling.”

Other common sense precautions include storing firewood, gasoline and other highly flammable materials away from the house.

“To make ‘housekeeping’ effective, it needs to be done all the time,” Mott says. “Once a fire starts, it is too late to move those gas cans off the porch.”

Gillespie says his volunteer fire department conducts fire safety inspections at a land­own­er’s request. During an inspection, firefighters identify potential hazards and help landowners determine how to reduce their risks.

For landowners who want to implement additional protective measures, Mott suggests they review the fire safety information found on the Web sites of local fire departments, state forest services, and at www.firewise.org. The FireWise program was created to help homeowners increase the odds of their homes surviving a wildland fire. The site includes information on topics ranging from non-combustible building materials to fire-resistant landscaping.

Another way landowners can protect their property is by ensuring that the fire department has easy access in case of an emergency. Locked gates, narrow roads, low-hanging limbs and even concerned neighbors can cause delays, Mott says.

“Traditional gates locked with a chain slow us down,” Mott says. “But our crews carry bolt cutters, so we can eventually get in. Big, electronic gates like those found on gated subdivisions and at some private recreational ranches are another matter entirely.”

It is imperative the fire department be able to open the gate using a previously provided, override code or a manual release. Manual releases are preferable, he explains, because if the electricity is off the gate won’t open even if the fire department has the proper code.

When it comes to fire department access, many people do not consider the size of firefighting equipment.

“People usually don’t realize how much vertical clearance, we need,” Mott says. “In most cases, we need 12 feet to 13 feet of clearance. This is crucial in heavily wooded areas where low-hanging limbs can impede our progress.”

Fire trucks are also wide. “Most of our trucks are at least nine feet wide, including the span of the mirrors,” he points out. “In order for us to easily access a property, we need 12 feet to 14 feet of space.” There have been times in his career where fire trucks could not pass along a county road because the vehicles of concerned on-lookers blocked the way.

Additional water

As additional protection, landowners can provide a water source for firefighting.

“When the fire department reaches your house, it only has the water it carries,” Gillespie says. “Depending on the situation, it may or may not be enough.”

Mott adds, “Generally, our brush trucks hold 300 gallons to 400 gallons of water, while our engines hold 500 gallons to 1,000 gallons. In the city, the amount of water is never a factor. In the country, the amount of available water is always a factor. We have to figure out how we can conserve our water and still put out the fire.”

Gillespie says landowners can provide additional water using everything from portable cattle sprayers that are kept full of water to large storage tanks holding 6,000 gallons to 10,000 gallons to dry fire hydrants.

Dry fire hydrants are non-pressurized pipes installed in a pond or a lake that give firefighters a way to replenish their water supply in rural areas, Moseley explains. Dry fire hydrants are more common in areas with plentiful surface water, but the plans can be modified to provide access to water through irrigation wells or rock stock tanks. NRCS and the Texas Forest Service can supply additional information about dry fire hydrants.

Mott says, “Dry fire hydrants can be very effective if the firefighters can access them. Unfortunately, many people install dry hydrants and then fail to put in an all-weather road that will allow fire department personnel to access the line. In an emergency situation, the firefighters cannot risk getting a truck stuck.”

Planned family meeting place

And, finally, one of the most important things that landowners can do to assist their local fire department during an emergency is accounting for all their family members, Mott says. Families should designate a place to meet in case of fire, so it is easy to know who is safe and who isn’t, he says. Then, when the firefighters arrive on the scene, they know immediately whether search and rescue is necessary.

“In case of a fire, protecting your loved ones is paramount,” he emphasizes. “After calling the fire department, evacuate the premises quickly. People often risk their lives to save family photographs, important papers, or other things. As a firefighter, I know that things can always be replaced – loved ones can’t.”

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