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Fire protection by landscaping and gardening track record of 2 decades.Fire protection for property is absolutely possible. The right landscaping for starters will do the trick. I have been on Tenerife the biggest of all Canary Islands when almost all of them had wildfires in 2007. Fincas (farmsteads) were devastated by Tenerife wildfires. None of the properties were holiday homes, though... I had discovered what could be done in this respect with my African property long ago. It doesn't matter in which country it is. Precisely, I gathered my experiences in Quazulu Natal South Africa. Not only home and garden need fire protections. There are the people, the pets and often life stock...
The view of the Valley of 1000 hills by Durban South Africa where we lived is fogged up by summer humidity towards the ocean. The 500 km mountain range Drakensberg ends here before reaching the Indian Ocean.
Fires such as African wildfires are very common here.
Fire protection for our property was vital almost by the year. Also, we had a cottage by the main house which served as a holiday home for friends, business visitors and family.
Here is how we "separated" the top section of the estate by different means from a large African nature reserve which bordered it as fires always came from there.
The 2 children you see here standing on a low wall on the left were my own, 30 years ago. This wall was the first step to make bush fires stop there.
Initially, we had put up the wall to show where the cultivated garden ended. It had a rather symbolic purpose, as well. It reminded: "Don't venture down into the valley..." Snakes and, bad ticks might lurk there. They barked at noisy, gray, velvet monkeys in tall Eucalyptus trees. Actually, they barked at everything, except fire. But, they were good company and body guards during my fire protection landscaping and gardening.
Here, a white 4 foot high wall as fire protection to a 50 meter long row of Eucalyptus trees which separates two properties.
Beginning of 1900, everybody had malaria paranoia in Durban. Those trees really took much water out of the neighbor's ground, then. Plants on moist grounds don't burn easily, of course.
The Eucalyptus trees were often reached by high flames, despite the prefab wall which served as fire ladder. But, the trees never perished, you know... What good did our kinky low wall compared to the high wall? Was it enough of a fire protection?
This photo was taken not that long ago. It's the same place you see in the previous picture with the paw paw tree. In this photo the paw paw would be in the very left corner. Anyway, one is supposed to see how close the valley is to the house in this area.
The fire protection landscaping is showing more mature plants in the picture that was taken much later. Plants are now almost hiding the ugly, low, gray wall.
The white wall belongs to the pool garden. Some steps past the house on the right lead lower down to the valley side of the property. A narrow opening in the wall is hidden behind where the paw paw tree would be on the left.
You can't see the succulent fire resistant ground covers in this photo. They stretched almost 5 meters down on the wall's nature reserve side. Not all of those ground covers were indigenous. There were several different ones. It wouldn't matter. What counted was that they did their fire protection job together with the wall.
Most of those plants had been there. They were scarce at first. I watered them sporadically while enjoying the fantastic Quazulu Natal view. Fire prevention watering is the first step towards fire protection.
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Yes, that was me in the photo.
