SPOKANE, Wash. – With devastating wildfires burning at two ends of Spokane County, homeowners might be wondering how to better protect their property, especially if they live in a rural wildland urban interface. Help can come through both the government and through private companies.
The Flowery Trail community is nestled deep in the Colville National Forest about 15 minutes east of Chewelah.
It might seem like homes there are in immense wildfire danger, but it’s actually quite the opposite.
“I’m always worried,” Dan Holman said. “I’m pretty confident that most homes here–especially the later built ones, because they’re non burnable homes–have a pretty good chance at surviving.”
Holman has had a place in Flowery Trail since the mid-70s, but also had a home right in the middle of Fire Storm in 1991.
“That kind of put the fear of God with me, in terms of wildland fire,” Holman said. “There were embers everywhere.”
That, combined with a neighbor’s cabin burning down, inspired Holman to call Steve Harris, Assistant Forest Regulation and Resilience Manager for the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
“I hate seeing homes burn,” Harris said.
He’s channeled that to help people in Eastern Washington become what’s known as “firewise.”
“The most important thing we can do to protect our communities is for people to work together, reduce the fuels around their residences and around their communities,” Harris said.
Holman can give you a laundry list of things his community has done to this point: “There were so many trees through here you couldn’t see the other cabins, we’ve added four fire carts, no wood is allowed on the outside [of homes] at all,” Holman said.
He can rattle off another if you ask him what else they’re planning for the future.
“We put a grant [application] in, and that’s for us putting in a 200 foot strip in the downslope area of our [neighborhood],” he said.
That drive has made the Flowery Trail community a model of firewise success in the eyes of Steve Harris.
“When we come to fight a fire and homes are well defended, then we have an opportunity to actually go out and fight the fire and not try to protect homes,” Harris said.
Working with state agencies like the DNR to get properties more fire safe is great, but if tall grass and brush riddles a property, there’s another–perhaps more rambunctious–option too.
Goats and sheep, who are actually incredible land managers because they can get to places that big machines and people can’t.
“We just let them out of the trailer and they know what to do,” Madison Throop said.
Throop owns Salt of the Earth Holistic Land and Livestock Management, an operation she started earlier this year.
She says her goats and sheep eat all of the low lying grasses which could easily spread fire to trees, and then subsequently to homes.
“You’re then reinvigorating the soil, getting rid of extra matter that could be inhibiting grass or other growth of different native plants,” Throop said, explaining why it’s called “holistic” land management.
“There’s a growing situational awareness around this,” Throop continued. “Fire ecologies are just going to continue to become more prevalent, and we’re working harder to manage those areas better, so we don’t have something that happened with the Gray Fire or the Oregon Road Fire.”
“This fire is so huge and it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes around in another direction, it just consumes everything,” said Maryke Houben.
The Gray Fire didn’t consume Houben’s home right on Clear Lake, though, despite the home across the street from her being destroyed.
In fact, Throop’s herd had grazed on her property only a couple weeks before.
“They came through and cleared it all out, so I was able to pick up all the sticks and everything that could help a fire go really badly,” Houben said.
The goats could’ve played a big role in protecting Houben’s home, and they gave her a laugh while they were at it.
“Oh my gosh, I loved it,” she said with a laugh. “Every single day, I could not just stop watching them. They were amazing!”
For Throop–who had to evacuate from the Gray Fire herself–that’s what her mission is all about.
“We definitely have a more tangible impact because this is so close to home, the fire was just less than a mile from our home base,” Throop said. “Being able to help our neighbors and our friends here is just that much more special to us.”
For more information on the Firewise program, click here, and for more info on DNR’s Wildfire Ready Neighbors program, click here, and here
For tips from the DNR on how to make your home safer in the event of a wildfire in your area, click here, and here.
For more information on Salt of the Earth Holistic Land and Livestock Management, click here.
