Take Down the Fire Ladder While You Upgrade Your Garden
Take Down the Fire Ladder While You Upgrade Your Garden
By Claire Elizabeth Bradley | Illustration by Charmaine Koehler-Lodge
2024’s wet winter turned the East Bay Hills into a garden of wildflowers, but it didn’t take long for the lush growth to turn to brittle gold. And now, memories of 1991’s deadly firestorm loom for those who witnessed it.
“It was crazy how quickly that spread…. There was so much fuel for it,” says Mary Elias, operations manager at Ponderosa Tree Service, whose company has been operating throughout the East Bay since 1971.
As more recent blazes have brought smoke and red skies, avoiding another disaster has been top of mind for city agencies and insurance companies as dismayed homeowners learn that their insurance has been cancelled.
“What the insurance companies are looking for is defensible space between the green area and the house,” says Elias, who urges homeowners to take important steps to create this space in their yards by reducing the amount of fuel on the ground. This means controlling weeds, cutting back grasses, and pruning trees and shrubs near buildings.
“We’re trying to reduce what they call the ‘fire ladder,’ that low, dried-out brush that, if it were to ignite, could then catch the lower branches of trees on fire and continue up,” says Elias. A few good hours of yard work using hand tools can often accomplish this task.
Elias says that if you have large trees overhanging the roof or tangled in power lines, you will want seasoned arborists to assess and intervene, both for the health of the tree and safety of the property. But beyond preventing dangerous fires, tree care has many upsides for gardeners.
“We do a fair amount of pruning on fruit trees in fall and winter to keep them small so that they can be harvested easily,” says Elias. She adds that reining in bountiful fruit trees can result in more manageable yields and better fruit quality.
A useful by-product of tree care is chipped wood, and most tree companies are happy to drop off roughly ten cubic yards of free mulch to anyone with room on their driveway. “It’s not the lovely bagged stuff you get from your local hardware store with every piece the same uniform size, shape, and color,” Elias cautions. “It’s a mix of what’s truly out there.”
That free mulch is especially valuable for gardens producing food since it can help retain water while adding nutrients to the soil as it breaks down. A thick layer of mulch also works wonders as a weed suppressant.
As Smokey Bear might say, anyone can help prevent a devastating fire, and maintaining the trees and plants in your own garden is key. Elias sums it up: “If you make sure there is a clear space between your house and your trees, you will dramatically make your area safer.” ♦
Claire Bradley gardens on her Oakland balcony and shares her experience with fellow small-space container gardeners in a blog called “Botany on the Balcony.”
