Hey, y’all!

Here are my Top 10 ways to prevent fires from spreading outdoors:

Prevent an outdoor fire from spreading to your house by removing flammable items that create a path for the flames.

1. Store firewood and any other flammable items a good distance away from your house.
2. Create a 30-foot perimeter around your home where nothing touches it. Keep wild grass mowed short, and trim trees away from your siding and roof so a fast-moving ground fire can’t climb up a tree and spill into your attic.
3. Examine your yard for fire hazards and for possible pathways that a flame could take to easily get from the shed where you keep your lawnmower into your house.
4. If your house is next to an alley, find a way to keep debris and overgrown weeds out of it so they don’t catch on fire and send flames your way.
5. Widen your driveway to at least 12 feet so firefighters can get their equipment through in case of a fire.
6. When you build a shed or other outbuilding on your property, locate it at least 30 feet away from your house.
7. Re-landscape your lawn so it’s covered with high-moisture, drought-resistant plants. Don’t plant them too close to the house.
8. Box in your roof deck—and if you’re adding one, don’t build it from wood. Open decks can trap embers.
9. If your house sits close to the one next door, replace your windows with double- or triple-panel models. Intense heat from a fire will break the windows and speed the fire to the house next door, so the more layers, the better. An aside: Those windows are more energy-efficient than your old single-pane windows, and if you replace them by December 2010, you could qualify for a federal tax credit.
10. Choose a non-combustible material like stone or brick for your outside fences.

What are your fire-safety tricks and tips? Give me a call on the radio on Saturday. The number is 888-ROSIE-4-U. Rosie on the House airs from 8 – 11 a.m. on News-Talk 92.3 KNST.

’Til next time, pass yourself a good dose of joie de vivre!

Next blog: Build with fire safety in mind