Prepping for Wildfires Using Defensible Space | SERVPRO of South Atlanta

7/26/2021 (Permalink)

If your home is damaged by fire or water loss event, SERVPRO of South Atlanta is ready and able to restore your property to preloss condition.

We have all seen the animated bear who encourages you to do your part in helping prevent forest fires. And it’s important, because wildfires happen and create or cause property damage for many people all over the United States. It’s important to do our parts in saving our communities but also our own homes.

Our world is made up of so many combustible materials that wildfires are becoming quite common, and we are lucky to ever stop them at all. We can do our part by doing something as simple as being more careful. But you can also take more decisive steps by practicing fire prevention strategies such as defensible space.

Defining Defensible Space

Defensible space is a barrier that you can help create around your home. While we don’t realize it, there are many things around our homes that can help fuel wildfires, so it’s important to use responsible planting and pruning practices and to incorporate items such as flame-resistant gravel to help lower your risk.

This defensible space is needed to help stop or slow the spread of wildfire as it becomes a threat to your property. By creating a defensible space, you give firefighters their best chance of stopping a wildfire before it takes over your home.

In some states that are particularly wildfire-prone, such as those on the West Coast, defensible space is legally required. In Georgia, it’s not required, but it’s an excellent idea.

Wildfires on the Rampage

California is widely known for their wildfires that seem to take over at times, but truly wildfires happen often and they can happen anywhere. There were over 59,000 wildfires across the United States in 2020. California did account for 10,000+ of those, but the average number of wildfires per state in 2020 was right under 1,000. Here in Georgia, we had 1,699 wildfires last year, burning 5,677 acres of land.

Anything that we can do to help prevent or quell the spread of wildfire must be done. Defensible space is one more way that we can do our part.

*If your home is damaged by fire of any sort, wild or not, SERVPRO of South Atlanta is ready and able to repair the damage caused. Get in touch today at (404) 505-1760 to get the SERVPRO of South Atlanta pros on your team.