Firefighters create MFHS 'defensible space'

By Richard Zowie

The Highlander

Anyone driving on the road behind the Marble Falls High School Auditorium on March 14 might have mistaken Dan Kramer, of the Marble Falls Area Fire Department, for an eager shopper trying to get ahead for the 2018 Christmas Tree season.

Working with several men with power tools and other devices used for trimming brush and shrubbery, Kramer carried a freshly-cut tall green shrub towards the road.

But instead of strapping it to the top of a vehicle or into a truck bed and taking it home to decorate, Kramer took the shrub to a wood chipper.

Soon, machine reduced the dark green shrub into mulch.

Kramer and the rest of those with him, including members of the Marble Falls Fire and Rescue, were creating a “defensible space” at the high school that will help protect the school from any future wild fires.

“This provides examples for residents of Marble Falls and Burnet County of how they can create a defensible space around their homes to protect them from wildfires,” said Chief Russell Sander of Marble Falls Fire and Rescue. “It’s been shown through multiple wildfires, wild fires will most likely skip over the homes of those who create a defensible space at their house.”

To create the defensible space, the fire crew cleared out all the underbrush, leaving the bigger trees. The idea is to keep a degree of separation between the lawn and canopy of trees.

Sander advised a defensible space around a home of at least 30 feet.

The chief pointed out the wildfires that struck Spicewood and Bastrop in 2011 and how the defensible spaces, can reduce the likelihood of a fire spreading and allow the fire department to focus its resources on stopping fires in more urgent places.

Creating a defensible space

Sander advised that once residents create a defensible space at their homes, they should keep the area clean and perform any preventative maintenance at least once a year.

“Keep the area around your house mowed,” he said. “Keep the brush from under your trees. I know many who move to the Hill Country want the ‘natural look,’ and you still can as long as you don’t have a lot of brush underneath. The fire otherwise will come up and get it.”

Jake Gosschalk, a wildland urban interface specialist with Texas A&M Forest Service, coordinates with local fire departments to show residents how to set up defensible spaces. He works with a bigger project called Community Wildfire Protection Plan.

“CWPP looks at what risk is, weighs homes subdivisions neighborhoods, road access, how close the vegetation to homes, home construction, and we create a defensive space based on that,” Gosschalk said.

He added that a National Fire Protection Association program called Firewise gets neighborhood and communities together and makes defensible spaces around homes to combat against wildfire risks.