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Creating Defensible Space
How this wildfire management practice can help in self defense
This past summer I was in Northern California for the first time since 2019, reconnecting with my family and taking a break from Berlin, where I live. And for the first time, I came across the term “defensible space”.
We were surrounded by wildfires: the Dixie fire was raging to the north, and the Caldor fire was creeping up from the south. Our morning routine consisted of coffee and checking the air quality index. It was intense.
Occasionally, the air cleared enough to go out. And it was on one of these rare days that my nephew and I were out for a drive, when I started to see the phrase “defensible space” advertised on billboards and commercial vehicles: “specialists in defensible space” is usually how it was presented.
“What does that mean?” I asked my nephew.
My nephew is 17, and has spent his life in the Sierra Nevadas. Like most people in that region, he knows a lot about the ecosystem he lives in, how to care for it, how to protect it, what it needs to thrive.
“Basically,” he said, “healthy trees are naturally fire resistant. The tree has bark to protect it, and the interior is pretty moist. A fire has to get pretty hot to burn it up. The danger is if fire gets to…
