Our homestead in Fairbanks is on top of a north facing ridge surrounded by black spruce trees. Black spruce trees just happen to be very flammable, catching fire easily and burning fast and hot, and wildfires have the nasty habit of burning uphill. When we moved into our house in the fall of 2012 it was suggested to us by some neighbors that we clear the land around our house in a 100′ swath in case of a fire, i.e. create a firebreak. My Husband Joel and I had every intention of clearing the trees back from our house but somehow it just never happened. Instead, 3 kids in slightly over two years happened instead, so a lot of things were put on hold. Finally this year we decided to look into this potential problem.
Just for perspective in 2017, there were 362 wildfires in the state of Alaska, burning a total of 653,147.7 acres, the majority caused by lightning strikes. This was a good fire year for Alaska. The worst fire year on record for Alaska was 2004, there were 701 wildfires burning a total of 6,590,140 acres! As you can see wildfires in Alaska can be a serious problem and a firebreak around your homestead on a black spruce-covered hill is essential for safety.
A smoked filled sky on June 14, 2018, at 10:45 pm. That pink thing is the sun.
The question then was not ‘Do we need to clear the land around our house’ but ‘How do we clear the land around our house”? To clear a 100’ perimeter around our house was slightly less than an acre. We asked a friend for advice, and that friend knew somebody, who then knew somebody else, who recommended us to a neighbor with some large machinery. We then asked ‘how much it would cost to use that machinery to go down our hill, cut everything down, and chip it up? The answer was $9,000! And just to be clear we had already cut down at least half of the trees three years before and the trees were just laying there dry and dead (perfect fires starter) on the side of the hill. With that answer, Joel and my thrifty hearts were full of indignation at the thought of spending $9,000 on something we could do ourselves.
Then our neighbor told us about the Firewise program, where they will actually pay you to cut down and get rid of potential fuel for wildfires. This seemed more up our alley. Pay us to do what we were already going to do? Perfect. The catch was we had to cut the trees down and remove EVERYTHING. We couldn’t leave brush, limbs, or parts of trees laying around. Did I tell you that our land is very, very, sharply sloped and all the trees that need cutting down are downhill of our house and driveway? So our next thought, was ‘Well we can certainly cut the trees down easily enough but how do we get all the trees up the hill’? We don’t own a tractor or any type of impressive winches or machinery. We had already cut some trees down years before and now the trees were laying around like pick up sticks, making walking treacherous, so hauling trees up by hand was out. Luckily for us, Fairbanks style friendliness of ‘I know a guy’ came through for us. The Firewise representative who came to our house to assess our land (400 trees to our acre that needs cutting down if you were wondering) knew a guy.
So “the guy” turned out to be a ridiculously handy man named Adam. Adam stopped by our house one day to show us his setup for hauling trees up the hill. In grand Fairbanks style, the tree hauler consisted of part of a home gym, a spool for wire, chain, two different motors for water pumps, some wire, hooks, wiring and a zip line for hauling the trees up the hill. Joel and Adam happily fiddled with the set up for three hours. I went to the Farmer’s Market in the meantime. But, it did in fact work. So my husband and I spent the days before vacation, hauling trees up the hills, limbing the trees, piling up the useable trees for fence posts and pole structures, and then hauling the branches up to the driveway and burning them in small controlled fires. Go figure, to prevent a forest fire we burned the trees ourselves. Now in our defense, we were going to chip the trees up for the chicken house and other animal bedding but we don’t own a wood chipper and the cost per day for a rental was $500. So we burnt our branches, and after about a week worth of work I bet we cleaned up about 20 trees.
Hopefully, by the end of our short summer, we will have our proper firebreak completed. These are some of the following things we have learned about fire safety and living in our forested homestead.
Before The Fire Season
Clean your gutters; your home doesn’t need the extra fuel. Remove tree limbs from above your house. Rake up leaves, twigs, and other combustibles around your buildings. Keep vegetation off of the house. Have a good ladder to reach your roof, along with shovels, axes, rakes, and plenty of garden hose. If you don’t have a traditional water source (we have an underground holding tank) purchase an extra holding tank for your yard.
Make plans as to where you would evacuate, and what routes you would use. If your house is on a slope, like ours is, take steps to address problems such as the fact that fire moves uphill.
In conclusion, look at your house objectively. Stop looking at the stack of wood next to the house as a convenient place to put the wood to save a long walk. Look at it as a fire does—it’s a stepping stone from the forest to your home.
During a Wildfire Incident
Wear quality boots, gloves, pants, long-sleeve shirt, and eye protection, if needed. If you need to protect your breathing, you probably shouldn’t be there.
• Position your vehicle facing the road for a rapid escape.
• Make sure swimming pools or portable tanks are full.
• Reevaluate the trees on your property. Better to lose a few trees than your trees plus your house.
• Close curtains and move combustibles either into the house or 100 feet away.
• Shut off your LPG tank or natural gas.
If anyone else has had to create a firebreak on your place please share your experience. I would love to hear about how you made your homestead safe.
My in-laws lived in the mountains of Colorado and they also had a firebreak. They were told by firefighters that there are only a few seconds to determine if a house should be defended or not. Thankfully, they never lost their home but there were many fire seasons in the early 2000’s they would pack up their valuables and whatever to keep at a safe place.
Hi Gretchen, I heard fires are going to be bad again this year. I hope your family stays safe!
I have a cabin that’s currently 10 miles from the Spring Fire near fort Garland. I haven’t had time to cut a proper fire break, if my place survives that’s the first thing to get going on
I hope your cabin makes it. It seems as if forest fires are worse and worse every year in the west! Good Luck!