Winter 2025

Landscaping for Fire Safety in Zone 2

by Pam Schroeder and Robin Harper

Unfortunately, living with the threat of wildfire is a fact of life for Californians. While we cannot control wildfire, we can help minimize its potential destruction by practicing fire-safe strategies that harden the landscape by reducing the vulnerability of your home and property to wildfire.

Hardening the Landscape

Creating a beautiful and functional landscape as well as a fire-protected property can be accomplished using the concept of Defensible Zones. Your property can be viewed as 3 Defensible Zones each with its own unique characteristics. Zone 0 (0-5 feet from the house) and Zone 1(5-30 feet from the house) have been covered in prior issues of “News to Grow By”. In the event you missed those articles the links are here:

Understanding Defensible Zone 0
Understanding Defensible Space Zone 1

For an illustration of all 3 zones and information on creating defensible space:

Introduction to Home Landscaping for Fire Safety
https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Preparedness/Landscaping/DefensibleSpace/

Zone 2, the Reduced Fuel zone

Zone 2 covers the outermost area of your property and represents the furthest reach of your responsibility. It is defined as 30-100 feet out from the buildings, structures, and decks of your home or up to your property line.

The goal is to reduce the fuel load (anything flammable) in this zone to slow down or stop the approach of a potential fire before it ever gets to your home. Fuel is anything that will burn including dead vegetation, downed branches, overgrown areas, low-hanging trees, flammable plants, furniture and wooden fencing. 

Keeping this area clear of dead material, spacing plants properly, reducing density (both horizontally and vertically), and adding hardscape will help eliminate fuel load and help slow or stop a wildfire from spreading across your property.

Where to Start

Before creating an action plan for firescaping, start by familiarizing yourself with the fire codes and ordinances specific to your fire district, as these standards vary and are enforced by local authorities.

Walk your property in zone 2 from 30-100 feet out from your house, then create a strategy, and make an action plan:

Create a Strategy

Walk around your property and identify problem areas to include in your plan 

• Note the sloped areas on your property (see below for more details)
• Identify plants that need to be removed
• Be aware of the dead vegetation on your property
• Identify areas that may need new or additional irrigation

Make a Plan

Create a written plan that incorporates:

• Fire-safe planting and spacing (both vertical and horizontal)
• A list of plants/trees that need to be removed on sloped areas
• Areas where annual grasses have dried out
• What fire-safe plants can replace those that are to be removed
• Where you might want to add hardscape
• Irrigation to keep plants and trees from drying out

Take Action

Time to execute your plan:

• Remove all trees, plants, and vegetation that you have identified above
• Trim up low-hanging branches and thin out overgrown trees especially where there is undergrowth on the ground
• Think about hiring an expert for help with tree removal and/or above-roof pruning of branches
• Add plants that are fire-safe to your new fire-scaping plan and plant in an island format
• Trim all annual grasses to 3 inches or down to bare soil
• Make liberal use of hardscaping (rocks, cement, gravel, rock walls, boulders, etc.)

Recognize the Impact of Slope

In a hilly area, fire will travel faster, and flames will shoot higher uphill; therefore it is important to add 10 feet of additional space between trees for every 10% increase in slope. This extra space can help keep the fire from laddering from tree to tree up the hill. 

Remove Flammable Plants

Fire-prone plants are plants/trees that:

• Have leaves that are dry due to low moisture content and are small, fine, or needle-like. Examples are Cypress and Juniper
• Have natural aromatic or resinous oils. An example is rosemary which is highly flammable

Plants that produce a lot of debris increase fire danger as well. For example, eucalyptus trees have bark that is loose and papery, which creates a lot of debris making these trees very dangerous.

Mulch Strategically

Mulch plays an important role in your landscape. Besides looking good it provides many benefits including:

• water retention
• soil temperature control
• weed inhibition
• soil erosion prevention

Keep in mind that some mulches can also be a highly combustible material in your landscape. The bigger and heavier the pieces the better. But remember, with enough heat, it all burns.

Maintenance - the final element in a fire-safe landscape

Be diligent in your maintenance efforts to keep your property fire-safe.

Ongoing:

• Remove dead plants, leaves, and branches
• Remove vines from trees and fences
• Compost or remove all debris

Annually:

• Thin vegetation and remove weeds or cut weeds back to 3 inches
• Cut back woody plants
• Ensure sufficient space between shrubs, house, outbuildings, and trees

Every few years:

• Cut back vines, groundcovers
• Prune tree branches to 10’ above ground and 10” above roof

Conclusion

This concludes our series on Home Landscaping for Fire Safety. By following the series guidelines, you can dramatically reduce the risk of fire spreading, creating a safer, more resilient landscape that not only protects your home but also strengthens the safety of your entire community. Fire safety starts with you—every action you take has the power to make a life-saving difference.

More Firewise information:

About the Fire Network
https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Home_430/

Creating a defensible space
https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Preparedness/Landscaping/DefensibleSpace/

CalFire information, including creating checklists
https://readyforwildfire.org/

More information on fire-safe planting
https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Preparedness/Landscaping/Plant_choice/

UCANR.edu information on Mulch

UCANR Fire Network: Maintenance of Trees