Create Defensible Space

The Roadmap To Fire Safety is a great, concise publication created for the Santa Monica Mountains. It shows you how to manage the vegetation around your home to create "Defensible Space"* On pages 29 and 30 you will find a list of Fire-Resistant Plants and Plants to Avoid!

For more information on how to manage landscaping and home preparedness for wildfire, check out the Fire Safe Landscapes website, which includes this guidebook (in PDF format) written in part by two experts we know and have brought to Topanga: Dr. Sabrina Drill and Dr. Stephen Quarles. It's a very good overview.

* as defined on this Colorado website, Defensible Space is "an area around your home or structures, which is either man-made or natural where the vegetation is modified and maintained to slow the rate and intensity of an advancing wildland fire. It also provides room for firefighters to work and helps protect the forest from becoming involved should a structure fire occur."