What is a "Fire Ladder"?

It is good question since it pertains directly to the City of Santa Barbara's Defensible Space requirements. The Santa Barbara Municipal Code 8.04 specifically states that vegetation must 'not form a means of rapidly transmitting fire from the native growth to any structure'. This is done by removing "fire ladders". (a term used often when referring to defensible space)

Removal of a "fire ladder" is done by separating vegetation both horizontally and vertically. When this happens, it slows the spread and the intensity (heat) of the fire, giving firefighters an increased ability to safely protect your home. Removing fire ladders requires that ground cover vegetation be separated from tree canopies and that there is clearance between shrubs, bushes and trees.

Often times while performing road clearance we come across fire ladders. These are usually the result of unmaintained hedges. Hedges that are maintained with all trees properly limbed several feet above the top of the hedge are all right. However, when the hedge extends into the tree canopy, providing an easy means for a ground fire to quickly climb its' way into the upper portions of the tree canopy, it is not. We do our best to work with homeowners in this case to come up with a win-win solution to providing for both fire safety and privacy.

Above is an example of a major fire ladder in the Eucalyptus Hill area. As you can see the vegetation has not been maintained and there is an easy "route" for the fire to use a mixture of hedge, exotic, native, and flammable material to climb. We worked with the homeowner to come up with a solution. Since most of the "hedges" have become more like trees we could have raised all the bottoms (skirted) of the trees up about 6ft or, like we did, remove the fire ladder by cutting back those portions of the trees that extended into the upper canopies. Now that the vegetation has been cut back, we expect homeowners to maintain the work that has been done so that it does not become a fire hazard again. This helps insure the fire safety of that homeowner, the neighborhood and the community.

Reducing Road Side Flammability One Plant at a Time

As we near the end of our annual Vegetation Road Clearance program we feel that we have succeeded in enhancing evacuation routes and reducing flammable vegetation throughout the Wildland Fire Suppression Assessment District. We have worked hard to ensure that our 13'6" vertical clearances were met, as well as  removing dead vegetation from the roadside.  We will be working, over the next two weeks, to finish the last half-dozen roads scheduled for clearance.

In a previous posts we highlighted the hazards of plants that contain a large amount of dead and dry material, as well as those plants that tend to be more flammable. As our project  moves deeper into the more residential areas of the City we have noticed a tremendous amount of existing cypress and juniper trees. While we make every effort to leave as much healthy vegetation as possible, we do aim to remove these species from your roadside. We work with homeowners to educate them on the hazards as well as the benefits of replacing this plant type with a more fire-resistant variety.





Here is an example of a removal we did a few weeks back.

TO PLANT, OR NOT TO PLANT???

We are often approached by homeowners with the question of acceptable landscape plants in the high fire hazard area. While our webiste has a comprehensive list of recommended plants (avalible here), there are also a number of specific plants that are NOT recommeded. Below is an excerpt from the City Fire Departments High Fire Hazard Area Landscape Requirements (Ordinance #5439).  The full print out can be found through the City's website or by clicking this link.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Certain plants are considered to be undesirable in the landscape due to characteristics that make them highly flammable. These characteristics can be either physical or chemical. Physical properties would include large amounts of dead material retained within the plant, rough or peeling bark, and the production of profuse amounts of litter. Chemical properties include the presence of volatile substances such as oils, resins, wax, and pitch. Certain native plants are notorious as species containing these volatile substances.

Plants with these characteristics should not be planted in High Fire Hazard areas. They are referred to as target species since their partial or complete removal is a critical part of hazard reduction. The following is a list of plants that are not allowed to be planted within the landscape zones defined below:

Unacceptable Plant Species:
Acacia species
Adenostoma fasciculatum – Chamise
Adenostoma sparsifolium – Red Shank
Artemesia californica – California Sagebrush
Baccharis species (low growing form OK)
Casuarina species - Beefwood
Cortadera species – Pampas Grass
Cupressus species – Cypress
Eriogonum faciculatum – Common Buckwheat
Eucalyptus species – Eucalyptus
Juniperous species – Juniper (except species which grow less than 1ft)
Olneya tesota - Iron wood
Pennisetum - Fountain Grass
Pinus species – Pine

Other plants may be considered undesirable because of their ability to naturalize and become a pest. These types of plants should be avoided, especially in sensitive riparian or coastal areas where they could become established and compete with native vegetation.