Illinois Valley News

Illinois Valley Fire District (IVFD) personnel responded to an escaped debris burn in the 900 block of Lakeshore Drive on Sunday, June 14. The fire consumed about an acre of grass. (Photo by Dale & Elaine Sandberg, IVFD Media Dept.)

Early summer is a good time to remove dead vegetation and “limb up” trees around backyards.

By taking these steps, home owners in Oregon’s wildland-urban interface areas can reduce the chances of a wildfire devastating their properties.

Safe disposal of shrub and tree trimmings after clean-up work is crucial. Every year across the state, backyard debris burns to remove yard waste escape to become costly, damaging wildfires. During 2008, some 206 debris burns turned into wildfires, burning more than 400 acres and costing more than $280,000 to suppress.

The majority of these fires were started on small parcels of land, in the wildland-urban interface, by the land owners.

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Chipping yard waste for use as compost is the safest method of disposal. But if chipping is not possible, follow these safety tips to keep your backyard debris burn from becoming a 911 call:

1. Contact your fire protection agency for permission to burn. Certain days might be designated for burning, based on weather and wind conditions. In some areas, burning is not allowed at any time.
2. Burn only backyard debris. Some plastics, treated lumber and other manufactured items emit toxic fumes.
3. Cover burn barrels with one-fourth-inch mesh screen. Screen that is too coarse, or using no screen at all, will allow hot embers to escape.
4. Keep burn barrels and burn piles away from structures, overhanging branches and motor vehicles.
5. Keep burn piles small. Add debris in small amounts as existing material is consumed. A burn pile is less likely to escape control if it is kept small. A large burn could cast hot embers long distances.
6. Attend your burn at all times. A burn left unattended for only a few minutes can grow into a costly, damaging wildfire.
7. Make sure that your fire is “dead out.” When burning is completed, drown the fire with water, stir, and then drown again. Even when a fire stops smoking and appears to be out, an onset of windy, warm weather days or weeks later could rekindle it.

These fires also take a human toll: Every year, 55 to 60 percent of all burns treated at the Oregon Burn Center in Portland are the result of backyard debris burning. According to the center, nearly every adult treated said that they had always used gasoline to help burn their piles and that nothing bad had happened in the past.

If your clothes should ignite, “Stop, Drop & Roll” to smother the flames. Never, ever use gasoline or other accelerants to start or increase your burn. It isn’t the gas that ignites; it’s the fumes that the gas emits onto your clothing.

Performed correctly, trimming landscape vegetation and taking other steps to create “defensible space” — a zone around the house cleared of flammable materials that will slow or stop flames and embers from reaching the structure — can greatly boost the odds of your home surviving a wildfire.

Tips on how to create defensible space can be found at keeporegongreen.com. Rural fire agencies, the Office of State Fire Marshal, and the Oregon Dept. of Forestry (ODF) office in Grants Pass is an additional resource. Phone 474-3152 for more information.

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