This workshop will help residential homeowners, professional landscapers, and contractors learn how to help a house and the surrounding landscaping “save itself” during wildfire season. Learn the steps to “harden” homes, strategically reduce fuel loads, how to develop a wildfire risk assessment of your home or your clients’ homes, and make our communities more fire resilient. This in-depth workshop will offer an introduction to defensible landscaping, strategic house hardening, and other proven wildfire protection techniques. You will benefit from the latest techniques that have been developed after the extreme wildfires in California.

The workshop will cover:

• Which homes are saved and which homes are lost in wildfires? What can be done to increase the chances that a home survives a wildfire?
• Strategies to employ in each of the defensible zones around a home.
• Best practices for landscape design and maintenance that emphasizes hardscapes, plant selection, and tree considerations.
• Home hardening and how to choose building materials that can make houses less ignitable; how building codes now require fire-safe materials for new construction, and how these can be applied to remodels.
• How homeowners can engage with trained professionals. What questions should homeowners be asking? For professionals, what guidance and services are homeowners looking for?
• Prescribed burns and the significance of living in a fire adapted community.
• What is a FireWise community? And why should I care?

Through real-world examples, and lessons learned through responding to wildfires, fire prevention experts and guest speakers from the building and landscaping trades will provide an orientation that will help homeowners and professionals make decisions about how to apply proven wildfire protection techniques to individual homes.

At the end of class, students will have developed a prioritized plan on how they can play a role in making their home and their community fire adapted, and how to identify what their next steps can be. There will be ample time at the end of each class meeting for Q & A.

A portion of the proceeds from this class will go to support the Fire Safe Council of Santa Cruz County. For more information go to https://www.firesafesantacruz.org/

This class will occur live in the Zoom virtual classroom. You will receive a link to join the live session in your registration confirmation email, following registration.