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Protecting your home from brushfires

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Keeping Your Home Ready For Fire

  • Clear roofs and gutter of leaves and pine needles
  • Clear at least 30 feet between your home and areas of heavy vegetation.
  • Keep grass around your house mowed and free of leaves and pine needles.
  • Keep flammable materials away from the base of all buildings.
  • Trim branches up to 10 feet on tall trees
  • Remove vines from trees, house
  • Keep shrubbery away from pine trees
  • Use patches of shrubs or perennials instead of a continuous bed of plants
  • Use mulching around your plants and keep it moist. Do not use too close to the foundation of your house.
  • Have a gravel walkway
  • Keep combustable materials, such as firewood, newspapers, gasoline, oily rags from 10 to 20 feet away from the home.
  • Do not connect wooden fencing directly to your home
  • Clearly mark your driveway with your name and address on noncombustible street signs

What To Do When Brush Fire Threatens

  • Listen to a battery-powered radio or TV for evacuation information.
  • Confine your pets to one room until you have to get out
  • Seal up attic and ground vents with pre-cut plywood or commercial seals
  • Place sprinkler on roof of house. Don't start it until the first embers hit the roof
  • Know where water sources are at your home, whether it is a hydrant, lake or swimming pool.
  • Clear 10 foot area around a gas grill
  • Wet or remove shrubs within 15 feet of the home
  • Connect garden hose to outside taps
  • Plan where you will evacuate to

Before You Evacuate

  • Shut off gas at the meter.
  • Turn off pilot lights
  • Open fireplace damper, close fireplace screens
  • Close windows, vents, doors, venetian blinds, noncombustible windo coverings, heavy drapes. Remove lightweight drapes.
  • Move flammable furniture to the center of the home.
  • Turn on a light in each room to increase visibility if your home has heavy smoke
  • Back your car into your garage or park it in the open facing the direction of escape. Shut the doors and roll up the windows.
  • Wear sturdy shoes, cotton or wool clothes, long pants, long-sleeved shirt, gloves and a handkerchief for your face.
  • Lock your home
  • Tell someone where you are going
The above tips are courtesy of Bay News 9's sister station, Central Florida News 13.



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