Fire in them thar hills!


OK, the fates have narrowed the field for our house hunting. 520 Thrift and its neighbors on Birdella- we loved those houses. Big, big yards, lots of house, great schools. While the neighborhood is currently OK, the narrow switchbacks and roads greatly hamper fire personnel. Also, there's no ingress or egress untill all the road closures are lifted.


If you live in one of these areas, it is certainly tempting to invest in the services of a gel company to come and spray your property if the fires get close. It costs about $50,000 to buy a truck rig and about $2000 per property to spray. It's a bit like slime. There are home kits for the do-it-yourselfer, but if a fire is that darned close, it may be the very last thing you do.
So fire clearance is now on the list of mandatory requirements for our home. No narrow streets, no neighbors with overgrown brush, no shake roofs, no overhanging trees that happen to be oaks (since oaks require permits to be cut down). It's a good thing that our requirement for a large play space is essentially a fire defensible zone. Wet close-cropped turf slows down embers.

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