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Creating a fire-smart landscape is about making informed choices that protect your home while maintaining beauty. While all plants can burn, thoughtful selection and strategic placement can reduce fire risk.
When choosing plants for your fire-smart landscape, prioritize:
- Plants with higher moisture content and lower oil, resin, or sap content
- Low-growing species that don't accumulate excessive dry vegetation
- California natives adapted to local conditions, requiring less water and maintenance
- Plants that don't build up dead thatch beneath their green surface layer
Avoid plants that:
- Accumulate dead, dry material within their structure
- Produce and shed excessive dead, dry, or fine debris
- Create fire ladders such as vines or shrubs that grow beneath trees and create vertical pathways for fire to climb
- Are known to be invasive
Choose plants appropriate for the space:
- Do you have enough space for the plant’s mature size?
- Is there enough space around plants and plant groupings to act as a fuel break?
- Click here for more details about plant spacing
Zone 0 (0-5 feet from structures) is your home's most vulnerable area. Best practice is to keep this space free of plants and other combustible materials.
Remember that regular maintenance—removing dead material, cleaning up debris, and proper pruning—is essential to maintaining your fire-smart landscape.