Well, last night was pretty dang interesting. We're both in the process of joining our local volunteer fire department. I'm interested in the wildland side of things, with some interest in the EMS side (thinking about getting my EMT-B again) and she's looking at a RN to EMT and RN to Paramedic bridge course. In any case, last night we had wildland fire triage training and went to four homes in our neighborhood to rank them in one of four categories:
1. Likely to survive without intervention or with limited intervention-Green flag
2. Prep and go-Yellow flag (do some quick things to prepare the home, but home can survive unattended)
3. Stand and defend-Yellow flag (home can be saved with some prep and staying with the home, defensible space exists)
4. Undefendable-Red flag (too little mitigation done, too great of hazard, insufficient margin for fftr safety)
(different terms were used, but that's the gist of it)
When we finished she was encouraged by some of the green flag homes. They weren't standing alone in a clear cut, they simply had defensible space, trees limbed up to 20' or higher, modern class A shingles and well trimmed grass. Also our home would currently be yellow flag and it really wouldn't take that much to get in the prep and go level.
So in the end, she still would rather start from scratch because she wants a bigger, more modern home, but we're on the same page when it comes to what we need to do going forward. We're going to have one of the more senior guys come over to the house in the next few weeks and do a full assessment with recommendations. I suspect by the time he comes over and I move the wood pile, rake up some more pine cones and do a few other little things around the house, he may only suggest thinning out one or two trees and we'll be good to go. Compared to many of my neighbors, we have one of the more defendable homes in the community. That's my only goal. I know a true fire storm will take out every home in the subdivision, but if we get a moderate fire, I want to be that one home they look at, stop, and say, "we can save this one."