How To Firescape Your Home (2024 Guide)

Fire Prevention Week falls in October, so there’s no better time to curate an outdoor space that elevates your home’s style while amplifying its resilience against potential fires. Whether you’re moving into a new home or revamping an existing property, firescaping adds aesthetic value and practicality to your landscaping in the face of today’s escalating incidences of wildfires. We explore how to transform your property into a haven that’s as fire-resistant as it is appealing in the guide below.

What Is Firescaping?

A firescaped home is landscaped to minimize its vulnerability to wildfires. “Firescaping is a landscaping and design approach that focuses on creating a defensible space around homes and properties to reduce the risk of wildfire damage,” says Kevin Lenhart, design director at Yardzen, a leading landscape design service. According to Lenhart, some keys to creating a defensible, fire-resistant space include strategically selecting plants, designing an effective layout, adding noncombustible mulch, and incorporating fire-resistant materials, such as retaining walls.

While no plants are entirely fireproof, Lenhart notes, certain characteristics make them less likely to burn. Your plants’ resilience is paramount when deciding on vegetation. Common characteristics of fire-resistant plants include high moisture content, thick and succulent leaves, low volatile oil or resin content, and slow growth habits. Across landscaping selections, these traits are highly desirable in a firescaped environment.

Where you plant matters as much as what you plant. Firescaping involves creating various zones that account for factors such as house proximity, plant heights and types, and required maintenance.

You should plant in three zones, categorized by distance: Zone 0 encompasses zero to 5 feet from the house, Zone 1 extends from 5 to 30 feet from the house, and Zone 2 includes land 30 feet from the house to any property line. Landscaping each zone according to its intended function reduces fire risk significantly.

How To Create Your Firescape

Proper planning will ensure you achieve the best results when creating a firescape for your home. Consider the following factors before beginning your fire-safe landscaping project.

Determine Your Zones

Before starting, map out how you’ll design each property zone to create a defensible space. Zone 0 is the location in which you’ll need to create the most fire resistance, as it immediately surrounds your home. To protect this space from ember ignition, include noncombustible design elements, such as concrete pavers, bricks, decomposed granite, or gravel mulch.

Zone 1’s objective is to reduce heat and flame movement. Opt for a lean, clean design with low- or slow-growth organic material that won’t generate vegetative buildup and interfere with the zone’s efficacy. Moving out to Zone 2, your main goal is decreasing the fire’s energy and speed. To accomplish this, eliminate dense vegetation in both vertical and horizontal directions.

Consider Your Land

Your property’s location and attributes are critical to how you zone and firescape. Good fire-resistant landscaping accounts for your land’s specific characteristics, such as slopes, wind patterns, and proximity to existing structures, such as garages, sheds, the main house, and even neighbors’ dwellings.

Each property has a set of characteristics—including microclimatic conditions, topography, soil conditions, and local vegetation—that play a substantial role in how fires behave. By tailoring your firescape design to these factors, you can enhance the effectiveness of your fire-smart landscaping strategy.

Different properties have varying levels of exposure to the elements. For instance, it wouldn’t be advisable to plant something that requires full sun at the base of a slope where no sunlight can reach, as dead plants are a fire hazard. Accounting for your property’s physical characteristics and its sun and rain exposure can help you meet its unique conditions when firescaping.

Choose Your Plants

Prioritize native plant species when creating your firescape, as they are innately well-suited to your region’s conditions. Note that some plants may be considered invasive in certain areas, meaning their introduction into the ecosystem could reduce biodiversity or cause resource competition with native species. Before planting, check local resources and guidelines to ensure you’re making the right choices to promote a healthy and harmonious landscape.

The following are examples of suitable plants for firescaping, along with their characteristics and zone recommendations:

• Blue grama grass: Blue grama grass is a native, low-growing grass species that reduces fire risk and is an ideal plant option for Zones 1 and 2. Plus, its fine texture can complement your other firescape elements.
• California lilac: California lilac is known for its fire-resistant qualities. This plant is a great choice for Zone 1 with its moisture-rich leaves and vibrant blossoms.
• Coyote brush: This native plant is well-suited for Zones 1 and 2. This brush can serve as an excellent wildlife habitat thanks to its relatively high moisture content combined with low flammability.
• Creeping juniper: Creeping juniper is a Zone 0 plant that forms a dense, low-spreading evergreen mat. Its thick, aromatic foliage is naturally fire-resistant and can act as a protective barrier around your home’s immediate vicinity. It also adds a nice touch of greenery to your landscape.
• Ice plant: Suitable for Zone 1, ice plants boast succulent leaves that store water, making them drought-tolerant. They also provide excellent ground coverage and can help prevent soil erosion.
• Lavender: Best suited for Zone 1, lavender is drought-tolerant, has low volatile oils, and emits a pleasant fragrance. Its dense growth habit can also act as a firebreak.
• Manzanita: Typically used in Zones 1 and 2, manzanita is a slow-growing, evergreen shrub with thick, fire-resistant leaves. It’s also drought-tolerant.
• Stonecrop: Stonecrop plants are an excellent choice for Zone 0 due to their low-growing, succulent nature. With a high moisture content, they’re resistant to fire and relatively easy to maintain, making them a popular selection.
• Thyme: An excellent groundcover for Zone 1, thyme is a small-scale, colorful, and low-maintenance lawn replacement that you can use to fill in small patches.
• Western redbud: Suited for Zones 1 and 2, western redbud is a small, deciduous tree with low flammability. Its vibrant pink or purple blossoms add incredible aesthetic value to your property.
• Wild lilac: Wild lilac thrives in Zones 1 and 2. It boasts a high moisture content and is native to many fire-prone areas. It produces beautiful, drought-tolerant blooms.

How To Maintain Your Firescape

Without regular upkeep, the benefits of firescaping can diminish over time as plants grow unruly. “Proper maintenance plays a hand in firescaping—i.e., regularly removing plant litter, dried leaves, or dead branches; pruning trees and woody shrubs; and [providing] proper irrigation to ensure plants are healthy with high moisture content and thus harder to ignite,” says Lenhart.

Below are several other ways to maintain your firescape and ensure it’s effective year-round.

Pruning and Trimming

Dead, dried-up plant parts are highly flammable, as they have little to no water content. Pruning and trimming plants—which involves removing dead and overgrown vegetation—reduces the amount of fuel available to a fire. Pruning also enhances your greenery’s aesthetic appeal.

Keeping an eye on your trees and trimming branches when necessary is another key to maintaining a healthy firescape. Ensure a safe distance between tree limbs and structures to minimize the risk of fire climbing into the canopy and spreading to nearby buildings, such as your house or a neighbor’s.

Controlling Weeds

Out-of-control weeds pose significant risks, especially during dry seasons, as they can threaten the health of other plants on your property and act as fire fuel. When weeds become parched and dry out, they turn into kindling, increasing the likelihood of a fire spreading. Regular weed control can mitigate this risk and protect your property’s ecosystem.

Watching for Diseases and Pests

Regularly inspecting your vegetation for signs of stress, disease, and pest infestation allows you to promptly identify and address any issues. Getting your plants back to good health in a timely manner contributes to the continued vitality of your landscape, supporting its overall effectiveness in protecting your property from wildfires.

Adjusting for Seasonality

Tailoring maintenance to the season will optimize the protection your firescape provides. When faced with hot summer conditions or prolonged dry spells, increase watering efforts to ensure your plants’ vitality and their capacity to retain vital moisture. As fall sets in, remove dry leaves and other dead vegetation to eliminate the buildup of combustible material. Prune for the growth season during your plants’ dormancy period, as trimming and shaping plants facilitates renewal.

Additional Fire Safety Resources

While firescaping is a powerful tool for reducing your home’s vulnerability to external wildfires, remember that fires can start in many ways. Several other preventive measures and wildfire preparations are key to keeping your family safe.

Equally crucial measures in domestic fire prevention include having functional smoke detectors throughout your home, storing fire extinguishers in easily accessible parts of the house, checking appliances regularly to identify malfunctioning parts, frayed cords, or vent blockages, and property storing flammable items.

With a comprehensive fire safety plan that includes firescaping, you can significantly lower the odds of losing your home to a devastating fire.

Expert Tips and Insights

We asked four experts to share their insights on architectural and landscaping considerations for people who live in fire-prone areas. Read their tips below.

Anthony Fettes

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture

The University of New Mexico

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What are some architectural tips or considerations you would tell someone who lives in a fire-prone area?

Three primary considerations include creating a defensible space around the structure, building with materials that do not easily ignite, and avoiding complex forms that increase surface area and potentially create heat traps. There should be no flammable materials on or within five feet of the structure or deck, and pay close attention to the fire resistance of your building materials. Partially closed areas, such as eaves, parapets, inside corners, vents, and deck overhangs, can all create spaces for heat to build up and embers to settle and ignite. For more information, check out the FireWise Construction: Site Design & Building Materials guide from Colorado State Forest Service based on the 2009 International Wildland-Urban Interface Code.

What features make a landscape easier to maintain than others?

When planning your outdoor space, it is important to consider using materials such as brick, stone, or concrete for patios and stone mulch for ground cover. These materials are long-lasting, low maintenance, and non-flammable. It is also important to keep the area free of obstructions to make it easier to keep your roof, gutters, and surroundings free of leaves and pine needles. To simplify your overall maintenance regime, keep your landscape simple by spreading trees and shrubs apart, pruning dead branches, and mowing down light fuels such as dry grasses that can quickly ignite. It’s easier to manage flat terrain than steep terrain for several reasons, and your preventative maintenance buffer won’t need to extend as far into the surrounding landscape. It’s also important to keep in mind that heat rises, and an approaching fire can quickly dry out higher terrain and move more quickly up hillsides. This is especially true for hot, sunny south and western slopes that dry out more quickly—factoring into how much landscape you need to maintain for fire safety and protection. Several states and organizations, such as the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), have excellent fire-wise guides on how to protect your home.

What is a native plant, and what are its benefits?

Native plants are generally identified as those that have evolved and continue to grow in a specific place or ecosystem without any human intervention or modification. Native plants are well-suited to the regions they have evolved in because they are adapted to specific conditions; depending on the species, they can tolerate disturbances like flooding, drought, and fire while supporting established relationships with other native plants and wildlife. Choosing the right native plants for your landscape can lead to greater beauty and enhanced soil health, promote deep infiltration of rainwater, and provide habitat for wildlife—thriving with little to no maintenance.

Anthony Fettes, ASLA, PLA, is an assistant professor of landscape architecture in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. With over 20 years of global experience in landscape architecture and ecological restoration, Anthony’s teaching and research interests explore the connections between culture, ecology, and place. His work aims to cultivate a shared appreciation of landscape through a deeper understanding and integration of traditional wisdom, ecology, and stewardship through design.

Lilian Alessa, Ph.D.

Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Resilient Communities

University of Idaho

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What are some architectural tips or considerations you would tell someone who lives in a fire-prone area?

It’s important to balance your personal sense of aesthetics with functionality. While easy to say, this also comes with a price. Some structural foundations such as metal roofs, xeriscaping (landscaping with native flora that requires minimal water use), creative use of rocks as construction features, and tree management are essential to ensuring your home is more resilient to wildfire, but they often come with steep price tags. Many homes were built for cost-efficiency, not fire resilience, but the homeowner can manage the landscape around the dwelling, which also has the benefit of being able to create an outdoor environment that is beautiful and harmonious with the environment it’s in. If you can afford it, replacing your shingle roof with a metal one goes a long way to increase resilience, as does ensuring you clear any dead vegetation surrounding your home. Ideally, you want at least 60 feet clear of trees in a radius around your home. Another factor many people don’t consider is to talk to their neighbors about taking the same actions both as a good community member and because, if they are in close proximity to your home, their actions will increase or decrease the resilience of your area. Fire is indiscriminate in its spread.

What features make a landscape easier to maintain than others? 

The most obvious are homes that aren’t surrounded by large trees or dense shrubs. The flip side is that many of us prefer trees to provide shade, beauty, and habitat for birds that make our living spaces peaceful. A home in grasslands or low bush is far more resilient to fire damage and destruction than one located in or near a forested area. One of the most critical factors is the distance from one flammable object to another. Trees that shade a home have multiple benefits, such as shade in the hot summer, but also the risks of catching the home on fire and/or falling on it. Homeowners can take several approaches to increase resilience on their own terms: Copsing trees, particularly large ones, prevents lower, highly flammable branches from burning more quickly; selective removal creates larger spaces between trees and ensures that any shrubbery that is up against a house is removed, which prevents a potential fuel source from igniting flammable synthetic building materials such as plastic siding. Topography also affects how quickly a fire spreads due to slope, moisture retention, and access by firefighters. Homes on steeper slopes are more vulnerable to fire damage as the environment tends to be drier and windier.

What is a native plant, and what are its benefits?

A “native” plant is one that has evolved in the region where you live. That means that it has evolved with the environmental conditions, including the extremes, that you will face as a homeowner. Native plants are beautiful and hardy because they have also adapted to survive in drought conditions (for us in the West) and can retain a higher moisture content even when the soil is dry. Benefits of native plants are many: They not only tend to be far lower maintenance, require less water in dry areas, and provide habitat for native animal species, but they also create a living space that is culturally and aesthetically cohesive with your region. While many discussions revolve around the physical benefits of native flora in fire resilience, they also provide psychological benefits beyond peace of mind. Native plants are the living features of the identity of where your home is located. Many of them provide food such as berries, flowers that often last longer than cultivars, and, if you are using grasses, a symmetry that is both calming and stunningly beautiful against the backdrop of a home. Native plants are ideal for increasing the resilience of a home to wildfire, but they also come with a steep price tag, particularly if you wish to hire a landscaping service. Ideally, we need policy that makes the ability to achieve fire resilience more accessible to the average homeowner. Just like energy efficiency incentives, a fire-resilient home incentive could vastly reduce the total costs of the devastating damage wildfire does every year to the American West and South.

Lilian Alessa, Ph.D. is a President’s Professor at the University of Idaho and is affiliate faculty with George Mason University. She has served and continues to serve as an Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) assignee to various agencies across the United States government working on resilience and security. She has over 25 years of experience working with academic, federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners focusing on security, defense, and the resilience of systems, people, and communities and co-directs the Center for Resilient Communities at the University of Idaho. She has helped write resilience strategies, policies, and implementation plans, working closely with federal agencies, academia, and the public. She sits on several national committees and has led the development of several resilience toolbox assessments. Among her extensive roles, she has been an advisor to the director of the National Science Foundation and through the Advisory Council for Environmental Research and Education (AC-ERE) where the need for big data approaches in the context of building a more resilient America. She recently received an award from the National Science Foundation for work on rural communities and adaptation to changing environments.

Rachel Schleiger

Faculty Lecturer

Butte College and California State University, Chico

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Are there certain landscapes more prone to fire than others, and why?

Yes! Fire behavior is influenced on the larger scale by the ecoregion in which you live and on a smaller scale by the fuels (vegetation), topography (landforms), and weather (short-term temperature and moisture conditions) on your landscape. These variables put together contribute to the fire regime your landscape is in. A fire regime is the term given to the general pattern (including frequency, intensity, size, pattern, season, and severity) in which fires naturally occur in a particular ecoregion over an extended period of time—knowing your fire regime can help you understand how likely a fire is to occur where you live. Check out the LANDFIRE program fire regime maps of the U.S. to learn what fire regime you live in.

What are common mistakes to avoid when firescaping a property?

Mistake 1: Assuming that creating a defensible space means having to rip out all your plants. Getting rid of too much vegetation can be just as bad for the safety of your home as not clearing any vegetation. Thinning plants rather than clearing will slow down winds and turbulence around your home while supporting habitat and providing shade. Exactly what that means for each landscape depends on the individual variables that define your landscape and greater ecoregion.

Mistake 2: Using a design that isn’t specific to their landscape, home, and family. Navigating all the details of firescaping can be overwhelming. It’s so easy to see a design someone has created for a different landscape and want to copy it for our own. However, every landscape is different, and the variables that make them different determine how fire will move across them. Each property needs to create a landscaping design catered to its unique variables.

Mistake 3: Not using native plants. Besides managing fuel densities, the other main goal of firescaping is to maintain plant health. The healthier the plant, the more resistant/resilient it will be to fire. Native plants can save you water, time, and money because they are adapted to your climate. Natives support and promote native wildlife diversity in our fragmented ecoregions.

What are some suggestions homeowners can implement to maintain a fire-safe home over time?

Family first. Know that being prepared to evacuate saves your family, and that is more important than your home and landscape. Have a “go bag” that includes your wildland fire action plan (house preparation, packing lists, evacuation plans, and contact numbers), so when an emergency arises, you and your family are ready to go.

Structures second. Assess your house and any other structures where you live for fire vulnerability. Then prioritize decreasing flammability on those structures with respect to the degree of hazard and costs for upgrades. We provide lots of tips in our book, but you can also consult with a fire professional or contractor with experience in how to make homes more fire-resistant.

Rachel Schleiger, MS, is a plant ecologist who specializes in restoration ecology. She has lived in the Sierra Nevada foothills most of her life. Her family and property survived one of the deadliest and most destructive western fires on record, the 2018 Camp Fire. Since then, she has developed a curriculum to teach about wildfire, both in person and online, through Butte College. She is currently a faculty lecturer at both Butte College and California State University, Chico.

Adrienne Edwards, Ph.D. 

Faculty Lecturer

California State University, Chico

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What are common mistakes to avoid when firescaping a property?

Mistake 1: Assuming your plants are more ignitable than your home. During a wildfire emergency, homes burn down due to embers, radiant heat, and direct flame contact. Of these three sources of ignition, flying embers cause an estimated 90% of structure fires during a wildfire emergency, not necessarily from the surrounding vegetation. It’s important to remember that living plants are filled with water while our homes are mostly made of (dead) wood. With proper design and plant choice, the water in plants can even partially screen our homes from flying embers!

Mistake 2: Assuming all plants are equal in their combustion points and/or contribution to fire behavior. No matter what type of plant (native, exotic, agricultural), some plants are especially effective at igniting and spreading fire. These plants are classified as “fire enablers.” Fire enablers tend to have the following characteristics:

Retain and/or drop a lot of dead leaves, twigs, and branches

Contain combustible substances like oils, resins, wax, and pitch

Tangled architecture (especially those that also retain dead vegetation)

Invasive species that contribute to horizontal and vertical continuity of vegetation (“ladder fuels”)

Incorrectly planted or poorly maintained plants also tend to be more ignitable.

Mistake 3: If the word(s) fireproof/fireproofing are in their vocabulary. Nothing is completely fireproof. We’ve seen the most intense fires melt metal and crumble stone. We can only do the best we can to reduce ignition/flammability for as long as possible and hope it’s enough. Fire is a natural disturbance and should be used as a tool to reduce the incidence of catastrophic events.

What are some suggestions homeowners can implement to maintain a fire-safe home over time?

Landscapes third. The two most important areas around your home for managing wildfire risk are:

Noncombustible Zone (0–5 feet): No more “foundation plantings.” During fire season (depending on conditions), nothing combustible should be within about five feet of any structure. That includes wood fencing.

Lean, Clean, and Green Zone (5–30 feet, or more depending on slope): Research indicates that thinning fuels within 30 feet of structures and maintaining a noncombustible zone next to structures are far more important than anything you might do beyond the Lean, Clean, and Green zone. Plants should be kept healthy, and clustered plantings can be interspersed with noncombustible areas of rock, bare ground, inorganic mulches, etc.

Habitat support.

Think about your neighbors; that is, your plant neighbors, your wildlife neighbors, and your human neighbors. The more land we develop, the more we need to provide oases for native plants. Pollinators and other wildlife need food, water, and shelter. Learn more about how to provide those resources in your yard and when.

The timing of when you clear vegetation can have a huge impact on pollinators and birds in particular. In a cooler, wetter year, you should leave flowers, seeds, branches, and other habitats in place longer prior to fire season to allow organisms to reproduce. In a hotter, drier year, you might have to clear vegetation sooner, but many of your wildlife neighbors would clear out sooner as well. 

Your human neighbors can be a weak link in the firescaping chain, so fire resilience should also be coordinated at the community level. For example, fences may make good neighbors, but wood fences shed embers like crazy. When attached to houses, fires can burn house-to-house following fence lines, toppling houses like dominoes.

Enjoy. Enjoy the natural beauty of your region with the confidence that you have prepared for evacuation if needed and reduced your fire risks while continuing to support the habitat around you.

Adrienne Edwards, Ph.D., is a botanist, plant ecologist, garden designer, and environmental consultant. She began her botanical odyssey in the Southeast, spent time botanizing in the Midwest, and since 2006 has lived and worked in northern California. After more than thirty years of experience teaching, researching, and consulting, plants continue to be her muse. She is currently a faculty lecturer at California State University, Chico.

Our Conclusion

Firescaping is an effective wildfire damage mitigation tool. “The idea behind firescaping is not just to prevent a home from burning but to slow the spread of a wildfire, especially if a whole community implements these principles,” says Lenhart. “Using firescaping principles can help slow down and prevent wildfires from spreading throughout a property and neighborhood.”

You can create a defensible, fire-smart haven by carefully selecting fire-resistant plants and strategically planning their layout. While no plant is entirely fireproof, plants with characteristics such as high moisture content and low oil or resin levels are much less flammable. Additionally, dividing your landscape into distinct zones and designing them according to their intended functions is a crucial step in minimizing fire hazards.

By embracing firescaping, you can transform your landscape into a more secure sanctuary for your home and neighborhood.

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