Suddenly the crowning fire was licking at the edges of our little world.

Your Best Defense
Defensible space gets a trial by fire as subdivision resident holds her breath

By Lynn Sutherland
Special to the Herald

It’s 8:45. We are evacuating. You can reach us on our cell phones ...”
I heard the message my partner John was leaving on our answering machine, and I wondered if we’d get a chance to change that message.
The Missionary Ridge Fire had been burning for over five days. Our subdivision – Los Ranchitos – was on pre-evacuation alert. We apprehensively watched the air-tankers as the smoke column kept getting larger and larger.

I thought the “splat” noise was the retardant hitting the ground, but John said it was the sound of trees exploding. That’s when I decided to call Fire Ready – a wildfire mitigation company – that had done a lot of fuels reduction work in our subdivision. Owner Ryan Borchers finished lining out his crews (he was working in the Mancos and Cortez area that day), grabbed his fire clothing, and called employee Brad Buckley (also a trained wildland firefighter) to meet him at Los Ranchitos. Brad and Ryan helped us put out ladders, turn off propane tanks, lay out garden hoses, move barbecue tanks to the middle of the large meadow, and sweep pine needles off the roofs and out of the gutters.

Fire at night A view from the deck of Medicine Bear Ranch, just northwest of Helen’s Store, during a firestorm.

We attended a public meeting earlier that Thursday evening, where the Forest Service had estimated that the fire would reach Los Ranchitos in two to four days. We had let our guard down a bit, and then the downslope winds changed. Suddenly the crowning fire was licking at the edges of our little world. As we were pulling out of the subdivision – with a carload of six cats, two dogs, a cockatiel, and a box turtle – John stopped to talk to Ryan. “Your subdivision is as prepared as it can be. Now get out of here.”

The Los Ranchitos subdivision is located about 15 miles northeast of Durango. Our homeowner’s association was the recipient of a 2001-2002 challenge cost-share grant from the Colorado State Forest Service. Our entire subdivision addressed the wildfire issue by forming a Fire Prevention Committee. The Colorado State Forest Service assessed our area and approved the work done by Fire Ready.

In a letter of support for the grant, resident George Rose pointed out that “funding spent now on mitigation work is a fraction of the cost to fight a large-scale fire should these measures not be taken.” By working together, Los Ranchitos had reduced the overall risk of wildfire in our small community. But would defensible space really work? We were about to test the theory!
“The defensible space is working! It’s beautiful,” an ecstatic Borchers told me at about 11 p.m. that night.

The morning after the fire at Medicine Bear Ranch. (The deck from the photo above is at right.) Blackened trees surround the property, but the vegetation within the defensible space is still green.

The crown fire topped the ridge, and headed down toward Jackie and Paul Dzuibek’s property (the northwest corner of the Los Ranchitos subdivision). Several spot fires reached the edges of the wildfire-resistant landscape. With isolated pockets of fuel, the only place for the fire to go was to the ground. Defending the homes meant keeping embers washed off the decks and keeping an eye on the ground fire as it smoldered.

We all received an education about defensible space. We learned that a wildfire-resistant landscape reduces fuels in close proximity to houses, while still maintaining natural beauty and privacy screening. Ideally, homes can survive a wildfire with just an altered landscape and no need for firefighting resources – which are often stretched pretty thin during a catastrophic wildfire event. The defensible space can also create a safe place for firefighters to defend structures.

Of the 30 homes in Los Ranchitos, nearly 20 property owners had created wildfire-resistant landscapes prior to the Missionary Ridge Fire. Another half a dozen have done the work since the fire.

Reducing wildfire risk makes communities and subdivisions safer from the threat of wildfire, increases property values, improves wildlife habitat, reduces the risk of disease and insect damage to trees, and improves accessibility in forested areas.

The beauty of the forest is why I choose to live here. I was hesitant to do the work until I toured other properties with defensible space and saw the attractive end result.

A Friday morning phone call from the Fire Ready office told me that the Missionary Ridge Fire came to the edges of the Dzuibek’s wildfire-resistant landscape and that all the homes were untouched.

“I thought we had said good-bye to everything,” said Jackie Dzuibek. The preventative measures taken by our entire subdivision saved our homes.

Lynn Sutherland is a resident of the Los Ranchitos resident subdivision.

	Los Ranchitos is an ideal example for other communities located in the trees. They worked together as a subdivision, used the State Forest Service to help identify risks, implemented the suggested precautions, and survived a catastrophic wildfire. We are happy to help fund this kind of project.