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bethestaryouareradio · 3 years

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Wildfire Protection through Landscaping

https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1507/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Wildfire-protection-through-landscaping.html

Digging Deep with Goddess Gardener, Cynthia Brian

By Cynthia Brian

“Fire is never a gentle master.” Proverb

This past year most of our conversations have revolved around the pandemic, masking wearing, and questions about recovery and normalcy. With the impending drought, an urgent topic that is on the minds of Californians is the potential for wildfires. With increasing climate changes and the trend of global warming, it is not a matter of if we’ll be faced with fires, it is when.

We can do our part to protect our property as best as possible through firescaping, a landscape design that reduces house and property vulnerability to wildfire. While enhancing the beauty of the property and creating a defensible space, we surround the house with plants that are less likely to ignite. Fires respect no boundaries and fires don’t honor property lines. With enough heat, almost everything burns.

Our neck of the woods is rural and wooded. We have minimal escape routes and must be extra vigilant. Many of the plants and trees growing throughout our area are highly flammable including pines, cypress, cedar, fir, bamboo, acacia, juniper, Pampas grass, rosemary, ivy, arborvitae, miscanthus, and eucalyptus. Coyote brush, although moderately fire-resistant when it is young and green, is highly combustible as it grows. It depends on fires to regenerate and grows everywhere in our hills. These plants need to be removed or carefully supervised. Since heat moves up, fire speed and severity are stronger on slopes where vegetation management is crucial.

A defensible space is an area around a structure that has been cleared of ignitable debris and botanicals that may cause a public safety hazard. A watered, green lawn can be considered a defensible space. A large brick, stone, or gravel area could be part of a defensible space.

No plant is fireproof.

Under the right conditions, every plant will burn, especially those that are drought-stressed or not maintained. Pruning of all plants makes them less flammable. A “fire-safe” plant means that it tends not to be a significant fuel source with a chemical composition that resists heat and combustion. It is critical to keep plants around our homes well-tended and pruned as a fire protection tool. The closer plants are to the house, the more care is needed.

Every homeowner is responsible for managing their vegetation to meet Fire District requirements. For MOFD requirements, combustible materials must be two feet away from a structure and plantings no taller than two feet high. Low-growing ground coverings and green grass are suitable as well as river rock, gravel, or crushed granite. Trees that are within six feet of the structure need to be removed, specifically eucalyptus, pine, bamboo, and junipers.

Neighborhoods are encouraged to form a committee to receive advice from local fire professionals on how to be Fire Wise. Being Fire Wise is dependent on the diligence of everyone in a neighborhood to keep a property fire safe. All properties become indefensible when one neighbor has overgrown bushes, brush, or low hanging trees. Neighbors must protect neighbors by making certain their properties are maintained. Again, fires do not honor property lines.

Characteristics of highly flammable flora

o Dry and dead leaves, twigs, branches

o Abundant, dense foliage

o Needles

o Low moisture foliage

o Peeling, loose bark

o Gummy sap

o Leathery, dry, or aromatic leaves

o Content of terpene, oils, or resin

o Dry uncut grasses

Characteristics of reasonably fire-resistant plants?

o Hardy, slow-growing plants that don’t produce litter or thatch.

o Drought tolerant natives with internal high-water content. Generally, but not always, California natives are more tolerant of fire and deer.

o Trees with thick bark that restrict the growth of invasive shrub species and hardwood trees such as walnut, cherry, maple, and poplar are less flammable. Deciduous trees and shrubs are more fire-resistant because they have higher moisture content when in leaf, lower fuel volume when dormant, and usually do not contain flammable oils.

o Supple, moist leaves with little to no sap or resin residue.

o Low growing ground covers.

o Bulbs with dried leaves cut to the ground.

o What can you do now to create a more fire-resistant landscape?

o Include pavers, bricks, pavement, gravel, rocks, dry creek beds, fountains, ponds, pools, and lawns.

o Select high moisture plants that grow close to the ground with a low sap and resin content

o Plant the right plant in the correct location. Leave space between plants.

o Minimize the inclusion of evergreen trees within thirty feet of structures. Clear the understory. Keep trees twenty feet away from chimneys.

o Remove invasive species or swaths of flammable plants including ivy, rosemary, broom, coyote brush, chamise, and juniper.

o Keep mulch moist. Create zones of rock, brick, or gravel. Bark and leaves are not mulches recommended near structures.

o Prune trees 6-10 feet above the ground to hinder fire laddering.

o Keep appropriate clearance to reduce the threat of burning embers from decorative features such as gazebos, fences, sheds, porches, and junk areas.

o Irrigate and maintain all flora, lawns, and hillsides. Clover, groundcovers, and grasses that are kept low and green are excellent alternatives.

o Due to soil erosion, bare ground is not recommended.

Prone to Ignite Plants

If you have these specimens in your garden, prune and maintain appropriately or eliminate them.

Acacia

Arborvitae or Thuya

Bamboo

Greasewood or Chamise

French, Spanish, and Scotch Broom

Ivy

Cypress

Eucalyptus

Juniper

Burning Bush or Gas plant

Pampas Grass

Palm

Pine

Rosemary

Cedar

Douglas Fir

Coyote Bush

Pride of Madeira

General Rules of Fire Safety

HEED the checklist from our local fire departments to create a defensible space around your home. Follow fire district recommendations:

o Prevent embers from igniting your home by clearing leaves, needles, and debris from gutters, eaves, porches, and decks.

o Mow grasses and weeds.

o Keep your garden watered.

o Prune tree limbs to keep the lowest branches 6-10 feet from the ground.

o Reduce “fire fuel laddering” by not allowing bushes or trees to touch one another.

o Keep combustible materials 15-30 feet away from structures.

o Maintain your property and be alert for any fire danger.

Weed abatement must be completed by June 1st. Get out there and get your landscape more fire-resistant. We all have a responsibility to one another to help keep our community from experiencing a wildfire.

Happy Gardening. Happy Growing. Be fire safe.

Photos: https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1507/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Wildfire-protection-through-landscaping.html

Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, is available for hire to help you prepare for your spring garden. Raised in the vineyards of Napa County, Cynthia is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3. Tune into Cynthia’s StarStyle® Radio Broadcast at www.StarStyleRadio.com.

Buy copies of her best-selling books, including, Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store. Receive a FREE inspirational music DVD.

Hire Cynthia for writing projects, garden consults, and inspirational lectures.

[email protected]

www.GoddessGardener.com

Listen to StarStyle®-Be the Star You Are! on the Voice America Radio Network Wednesdays 4-5pm PT LIVE or in the archives at https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2206/be-the-star-you-are

#keywords: wildfireprotection landscapingfirescaping. cynthiabrian starstyle goddessGardener growingwiththegoddessgardener

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goddessgardener · 4 years

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Scary, Scary Night

by Cynthia Brian

“Starry, starry night Flaming flowers that brightly blaze Swirling clouds in violet haze.” Don McLean

In 1889, post-impressionist, Vincent Van Gogh, painted one of his most memorable paintings, The Starry Night, as he looked out of his asylum east window. On October 10, 2019, when I looked out our east window, the starry night was aglow with flames and they were not the brightly blaze of flaming flowers. Normally, I look forward to the month October because of the frivolity of Halloween. Costumes, candy, scarecrows, black cats, ghosts, ghouls, jack o ’lanterns, and trick or treating offer children a scary evening of amusement. It was a scary, scary night, but it was not Halloween.

The power was off and a fire erupted racing down the hill to a neighborhood fast asleep. Firefighters were swift and efficient evacuating the community and containing the inferno. Police officers assisted in maintaining peace and safety. Fortunately, all structures were saved and no injuries were incurred, thanks to the professional first responders. Gardens and landscapes survived the blaze with only a few fences being torched.

What homeowners need to know to be more fire-safe: Lamorinda is rural, wooded, with minimal escape routes. Many of the plants and trees growing throughout our area are highly flammable including pines, cypress, cedar, fir, bamboo, acacia, juniper, Pampas grass, rosemary, ivy, arborvitae, miscanthus, and eucalyptus. Coyote brush, although moderately fire-resistant when it is young and green, is highly combustible as it grows. It depends on fires to regenerate and grows everywhere in our hills. All of these plants need to be removed or carefully supervised. Since heat moves up, fire speed and severity is stronger on slopes where vegetation management is crucial.

Autumn is a prime time to prepare your landscaping for the next season and create a defensible space around your property. A defensible space is an area around a structure that has been cleared of ignitable debris and botanicals that may cause a public safety hazard. No plant is fireproof. Under the right conditions, every plant will burn, especially those that are drought-stressed or not maintained. A “fire-safe” plant means that it tends not to be a significant fuel source in itself with a chemical composition that resists heat and combustion. It is critical to keep plants around our homes well tended and pruned as a fire protection tool. The closer plants are to the house, the more care is needed. Every homeowner is responsible for managing their vegetation to meet Fire District requirements.

Neighborhoods are encouraged to form a committee to receive advice from local fire professionals on how to be Fire Wise. Being Fire Wise is dependent on the diligence of everyone in a neighborhood to keep property fire safe. Fires do not honor property lines. All properties become indefensible when one neighbor has overgrown bushes, brush, or low hanging trees.

What makes flora highly flammable? ϖ Dry and dead leaves, twigs, branches ϖ Abundant, dense foliage ϖ Needles ϖ Low moisture foliage ϖ Peeling, loose bark ϖ Gummy sap ϖ Leathery or aromatic leaves ϖ Content of terpene, oils, or resin ϖ Dry uncut grasses

What makes flora reasonably fire-resistant? ϖ Hardy, slow-growing plants that don’t produce litter or thatch. ϖ Drought tolerant natives with internal high water content. Generally, but not always, California natives are more tolerant of fire and deer. ϖ Trees with thick bark that restrict the growth of invasive shrub species and hardwood trees such as walnut, cherry, maple, and poplar are less flammable. Deciduous trees and shrubs are more fire resistant because they have higher moisture content when in leaf, lower fuel volume when dormant, and usually do not contain flammable oils. ϖ Supple, moist leaves with little to no sap or resin residue. ϖ Low growing ground covers. ϖ Bulbs with dried leaves cut to the ground.

What can you do now to create a more fire-resistant landscape? ϖ Include pavers, bricks, pavement, gravel, rocks, dry creek beds, fountains, ponds, pools, and lawns. ϖ Select high moisture plants that grow close to the ground with a low sap and resin content ϖ Plant the right plant in the correct location. Leave space between plants. ϖ Minimize the inclusion of evergreen trees within thirty feet of structures. Clear the understory. Keep trees twenty feet away from chimneys. ϖ Remove invasive species or swaths of flammable plants including ivy, rosemary, broom, coyote brush, chamise, and juniper. ϖ Keep mulch moist. Create zones of rock, brick, or gravel. Bark and leaves are not mulches recommended near structures. ϖ Prune trees 6-10 feet above the ground to hinder fire laddering. ϖ Keep appropriate clearance to reduce the threat of burning embers from decorative features such as gazebos, fences, sheds, porches, and junk areas. ϖ Irrigate and maintain all flora, lawns, and hillsides. Clover, groundcovers, and grasses that are kept low and green are excellent alternatives. ϖ Due to soil erosion, bare ground is not recommended.

Helpful Websites ϖ National Fire Protection Association: https://www.nfpa.org ϖ Moraga Orinda Fire District: http://www.mofd.org ϖ University of California Cooperative Extension: https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Prepare/Landscaping/Plant_choice/ ϖ Fire Safe Marin: https://www.firesafemarin.org ϖ Pacific Northwest Fire Resistant Plants: http://www.firefree.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Fire-Resistant-Plants.pdf ϖ Las Pilitas Nursery (Located in Santa Margarita, this website lists deer and fire-resistant flora plus burn times.) https://www.laspilitas.com/easy/deerfire.htm

ϖ General alert: http://www.nixle.com

Having had warning of the looming PGE blackout, I had deeply irrigated my entire garden and hillside. An alert from EBMUD instructed that in a power outage, water must be used judiciously, so as a pre-emptive measure, I watered my landscape thoroughly, soaking the grass, shrubs, mulch, trees, and fences. Throughout the summer, thrice, I had weed-whacked the tall grass surrounding my property and that of neighbors, pruned low hanging tree branches, and a week before the fire I had, thankfully, cut the dry perennials to the ground. These are steps I encourage all homeowners to undertake. Maintaining our landscaping is a never-ending task mandatory for both our pleasure and protection.

Let’s participate in keeping the fire-breathing dragon away! Enjoy a safe and scary evening of Trick or Treating under the starry skies!

Happy Gardening. Happy Growing. Happy Halloween! Read more: https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1318/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Scary-scary-night.html

Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, raised in the vineyards of Napa County, is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3. Tune into Cynthia’s StarStyle® Radio Broadcast at www.StarStyleRadio.com.

Buy a copy of her books, Growing with the Goddess Gardener and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store.

Hire Cynthia for writing projects, garden consults, and inspirational lectures. [email protected]

www.GoddessGardener.com

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trippinglynet · 5 years

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Burning Man 1997 | Bob Stahl archive

Windy City Camp ... of the Tomales Bay Explorers Club

Building the biggest little City in the Nevada desert.

May 1997. I must have read about the Anon Salon party in the San Francisco Cacophony Society newsletter. Reminisce about last year's Burning Man, show your photos, and volunteer to start building this year's city in the desert on Memorial Day. I thought, here's my chance to find an escape from the melodrama that has been my life for the last few months. Last year's Desert Burn was a gas, working my butt off on our Free Shower camp. Maybe I'll find some like minds, dust devils that would sweep me into a magic desert of mystery and discovery. Maybe I can help build this artists' colony in the Nevada desert and use it as a retreat myself. Hmm...

Fortune favors the brave! Walking down an anonymous Salon hallway, I overheard two intensely demeanored people hashing about finding someone to head up the re-roofing of a building on the ranch. Boldly I said, "I can do that!" and offered my services to Harley and Will, who help organize the event. [Ed Note: Harley K. Dubois and Will Roger] I remember them looking a little incredulous... but I promised I would come up and help show some artists how to swing a hatchet, since I had a lot of roofing and construction experience. So, the next day I drove the six hours up from San Francisco to Fly Ranch, north of Gerlach and a little west of the Black Rock Desert playa. Little did I know I'd be spending weeks up there as the summer went on.

Memorial Day, 1997 found a few dozen of us jackrabbits at Fly Ranch shoveling cow shit, bull snakes, wood rats, and assorted vermin out of a couple of neglected ranch buildings. The ranch houses a mile north of the main camp area were to be the central organizational spot for medical and firefighting staff for this year's burn. We roofed, wired, insulated, prepped for sheet rock, cleared brush, and burned a lot of nasty stuff that created a horrible stench. We all discovered new friends in the daytime work, around bonfires at night, and at Fly Geyser, a fantastic hot spring only a mile away, with a steaming, sputtering geyser and huge swimming ponds.

Fly Ranch is owned by cattle rancher John Casey, whose niece, Ann Westerbeke, is caretaker with her husband Van. Annie offered the Ranch for this year's Desert Burn, possibly leading to a long-term home for the Project. The ranch skirts a cove along the roughly circular Hualapai Flat, a relatively small playa, or mudflat, a little west of the 1996 Desert Burn. It will only be about a mile from the paved Hwy 447 to the center of camp on a road graded through the sagebrush. To get to the proposed center of the BM universe we dodged through a half mile of sagebrush, chamise, rabbits, and cow pies, which then gave way to grass, rushes, salt grass, pickleweed, shore birds, and more cow pies. The playa is dry only along the very edge this time of year -- the center is covered with water now. The playa edge is very much like the San Francisco Bay shore, without the lapping waves. Intermittent streams coming off the Granite Range wet portions of the playa edge. The Granites rise abruptly to 8000 feet along the west side of the highway, much as the Sierras from Hwy 395. The playas are about 3900 feet in elevation.

June, July 1997. Benefit events for the Project at the Somar (down on Brannan near the Jewelry Mart) and Anon-Salon (at Ninth & Folsom, south of Market in San Francisco) performance spaces have generated a fantastic amount of activity. It's exciting to be part of getting the project moving. I helped stage the Somar show, "Mysteria," and was recruited to build the Cafe Temps Perdu, a shaded gathering spot in the center of the city.

August 1997 - Building Black Rock City. Taming this site and breaking new ground must be a little like settling the plains. What dedicated, plumb crazy people - Flash [Hopkins] up on the bulldozer day and night, Tony [Coyote] setting fence posts, Flynn [Mauthe] building and rebuilding everything in sight, and Van riding fence up and down the Playa edge on grader, dozer, and aeroplane. And me, crawling out of the tent at before sunrise to make coffee, and returning at sunset. The stubborn sagebrush and greasewood up in the parking area are tough to pull down, and the ground isn't as level as it looks - humungous rabbit holes. The playa is wet clay, below a thin dry crust, as I found out after getting the truck mired in a wet spot. Black Rock City was laid out by Joegh [Bullock] and Rod [Garrett], designer of the City, who set flagging in the playa mud around the perimeter of BLM land and along proposed avenues. Flynn worked on everything under the sun, from hours before sun-up until dark-thirty. Tony rode herd on volunteer crews. (Too many others too mention - because I don't have enough photos to post! Thanks all!) Through it all, night visits to Fly hot springs help us soak off the dust and the soreness - a little piece of Heaven.

Cafe Temps Perdu, the Cafe of Time Lost, was this year's project by P. Segal, who yearly organizes a happy gathering spot in the center of the City. Somewhat left on my own, I built most of the Cafe, driving back to Reno to get some of the materials. The cafe storage shed took two days to bang together -- first structure on the playa! All reusable panels! Thanks to all who helped build the Cafe -- Circus Ridiculous, the geothermal hunky guys, Flynn, Tony, Ruth, Jed, et al. Many thanks to P. & Dawn for the inspiration, encouragement, and caffeine. Next year we'll have a rotating demitasse cup.

Yeeeehahhh! In the middle of all our feverish work in the hot sun and blinding wind of August, John Casey came crashing through the sagebrush in his Cadillac, rounding up his cattle to truck to market. Some local cowboys rounded up four- or five-hundred heifers. We volunteered to do a quick rebuilding of the corral for Van and Annie, unluckily in the middle of a windstorm. The next day we watched the horses and dogs go to work, and it felt like a hundred years ago.

Temporal Decomposition, an installation by artist Jim Mason, was a *big* ball of ice in the avenue between the Man and the center of camp. Jim started his project early to freeze all sixteen tons of ice using a refrigeration unit from a tractor-trailer and a mountain of foam and straw insulation. The sphere, stripped of its insulating shell and laid bare in the sun, was not unironically reflective of the fugitive nature of all the flaming and burnable art on the Playa.

September 1997. After being up to my skivvies in work on the cafe, building our theme camp, tearing back to the Bay Area to take care of business, and dealing with the usual opening night chaos, I finally got to enjoy the show. On my return to Black Rock, it looked awfully lonesome -- oops, wrong playa!

Pedal Camp was the first camp to raise its flag on the Playa - a project of Chicken John and his band-o'-loons, Circus Ridikulous. They built outrageously reworked and rewelded bikes and trikes from scavenged bikes and shopping carts. No brakes? - NEVERMIND! I helped them plunder a few local spots for wood, tin, old bicycles and such to build their camp, and the boys helped me quite a bit with the cafe. Many thanks! Go see them perform when they plunder your town!

The Daughters of Ishtar was this year's dramatic extravaganza organized by Pepe Ozan. His theatrical aggregation descended on the Playa about a week before the opening, and they got a quick start on their monumental, mythic constructions of mud and steel for the coming Saturday night performance. The ruins left after the burn were monumental in themselves. A spooky gateway to Center Camp, the Tower of Bones, was built by sculptor Michael Christian next to the Black Rock Ranger station. Ranch neighbors located piles of horse and cow bones, with some almost-complete skeletons, for Michael to lash onto a matrix of steel rods. (Michael, and Todd, helped me some on the cafe; thanks to Todd for the gramophone music on a peaceful night on the playa.) The House of Doors was the place to hang for open-mike performances. (My thanks to Chris for the beautifully painted Cafe Temps Perdu sign.) We genuflected at the Church of the Slide Guitar, on the northern frontier, on Sunday morning. Truly spiritual. Later we found a crew loading the Man with pyrotechnics.

Campo Illuminado, out on the spooky northern borders of our ephemeral city, greeted us with an illuminated garden of Space Spores at the entry to the Very Large Array. This Array was a "sound garden" of two hundred speakers, dusting the night with spacy Sirenian sounds, but only for the lucky few who heard its call between dusk and dawn, or who were dragged out in the middle of the night in artist Lexie's big truck. (Many thanks to Coffee Boy, Lexie, Aaron, Jeremy, Darryl, Sabine, Cliff, Bruce, Alex, et al.)

Our own theme camp, Windy City, was a regeneration of the Tomales Bay Explorers Club, of fantastic projects and explorations past. We erected a windmill made of scavenged parts from around the valley, including the blade from the windmill which formerly pumped water at the ranch. A tribute to my father, who was a farmer's son. *Wind art* was our general theme. Thanks to all our campers and visitors -- Karl, Liz, Steve, Dave, Russ, Brad, Paul, Mike & Mike, Jason, et al -- from BillyBob. Next year we'll knock'em dead.

We also assembled two homemade three-wheeled "land sailers" from spare auto and motorcycle parts to take passengers for rides on the lake bed, but were a bit unsuccessful with our prototypes. Our sails were from a small sailboat and a sailboard, axles from two Chevy Sprints at the Pick-Your-Part, and junk from the basement.

Scenes from Windy City Camp

In the aftermath of the Burn, we found the Vegematic had met its match -- the immersible object vs the irresistible farce. Steel vs frozen water. All was quiet, when the Ravers fled, leaving ghosts, hard-core campers, garbage, doggawn dieties, pink clouds, and human flotsam. We punctuated our hell-ride back home with a stop at Fort Brokenshort.

#Bob Stahl #1997

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bethestaryouareradio · 4 years

Text

Scary, Scary Night

by Cynthia Brian

“Starry, starry night Flaming flowers that brightly blaze Swirling clouds in violet haze.” Don McLean

Neighborhoods are encouraged to form a committee to receive advice from local fire professionals on how to be Fire Wise. Being Fire Wise is dependent on the diligence of everyone in a neighborhood to keep property fire safe. Fires do not honor property lines. All properties become indefensible when one neighbor has overgrown bushes, brush, or low hanging trees.

ϖ General alert: http://www.nixle.com

Let’s participate in keeping the fire-breathing dragon away! Enjoy a safe and scary evening of Trick or Treating under the starry skies!

Happy Gardening. Happy Growing. Happy Halloween! Read more: https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1318/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Scary-scary-night.html

Buy a copy of her books, Growing with the Goddess Gardener and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store.

Hire Cynthia for writing projects, garden consults, and inspirational lectures. [email protected]

www.GoddessGardener.com

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