The massive wildfire driving the inhabitants of Fort McMurray, Alberta, and surroundings reminded me of the issue of fire protection, both urban and rural.
Here is some permaculture advice on fire protection in rural areas, from Bill Mollison, the Australian permaculture pioneer. If you're new to the miracles of permaculture, I included two short video clips. More below.

Woah

How about some music from Oz?

Fire Protection
Bill Mollison discusses fire protection in his native Australia, whose climate resembles that of the SW United States. (Sadly, I've lost the source; if you know, please help.)

Fire-immune elements

There are obvious fire-immune elements in the zonation that you can place to intercept fire:
• mud crops,
• mulched garden,
• roads,
• short grazers,
• summer-green systems,
• low-litter plants.
What you swing around and interpose toward the wind may be the very same set-up that you use to feed the pigs.
Your windbreak could be a tall forest of marsh species.
On rises, where there are no high hills on the other side of them, you may have to build a very high radiation break very close to the house.

Sequences of defense

In permaculture landscapes, there are sequences of defense that you must throw up. What you must do is reduce fuel. That must be the primary strategy. You can do this by:
• creating non-fuel surfaces, such as roads and ponds,
• constructing swales,
• doing pit mulching, and
• reducing fuel by means of browsing or grazing.

Fire shadows

• Central area
• Earth banks
• Willows & poplars

Protecting the house

Hundred feet clearance
You only need a hundred feet of non-fuel systems between the house and the forest. That is not very far; it is a raking job.

Down Hill Sprinkler system
The primary protection in fire is to have good sprinklers down hill.
If you turn on your sprinklers, and the ground is wet, the fire won't cross that ground. If the fire is already there when you put the sprinklers on, then the water doesn't get very far out of the sprinkler. So you must start your defenses before the fire.

Roof sprinkler
Sprinkler systems on roofs are very critical.
A house is lost when ashes fall all over the roof, slide down it, prop against chimneys and fill gutters. The wind is blowing; the heat returns in under the roof and catches tar paper and insulation, and starts burning from the ceiling under the roofing. That is the way 99% of houses ignite.
Put a monsoon sprinkler on the ridge of the roof.
It is only going to operate for a short period while the ash is falling. It will be the most sensible fixture that you can put on a house.
The tap to it should be outside. Turn it on, and the whole house is being washed down for an essential half hour. The roof is continually washed, and the gutters are flowing.
For this, you will need a gravity system, and it needs to be yours, because if it is part of a public system, every body will be drawing on it, and, likely, the system will be inadequate.

Fire-resistant plant species

Select plant species for this area that have fire-resistant characteristics, such as very high ash content, a very high water content, very low total bulk, and which grow densely.
The ice plants, the coprosma, (zone 8-10) some of the thick-leaf evergreen plants, whose litter decomposes very fast, have leaves that are highly nutritious and don't last very long on the ground.
So we need to throw fire shadows over the central part of the system that contains our client.
We do it with earth banks, and we do it with trees like willows and poplars that have high water content and that throw out a black cloud of steam. They don't let radiation through.
A list of plant species useful for fire control in any area varies with the climate.
Fire departments in fire-prone areas are often able to make recommendations.
Fire-prone plant species
Some trees, particularly the pines, and many of the leaf species, are litter accumulators. They form a hard and volatile litter that simply builds up and carries very large ground fire.
Do not use plants that have high volatile oil content to the fire danger side, the downhill side.
Eucalypts are a positive no-no, and so are pine trees.
Both are to some extent fire weeds.
Both carry cones and hard fruits that often don't open until fires.
After fires, you will see a widespread covering of new growth from the seed of these trees. That is what they are waiting for, a fire to enable them to extend their range a little.

Permaculture

I hope to talk more permaculture in future, after we're established and practiced it more! Although, a weekly brief video clip might be helpful in the mean time...

Here is a 3-min clip of Bill Mollison in Arizona back in the day.

Here is my favourite permaculture guru, Geoff Lawton (7-min), on how he transformed a piece of the Middle East desert.

I look forward to your comments, suggestions, fire experience, tips & techniques, and so forth :=)

Peace be with us, if we become fire smart in the climate age,
gerrit