ELY — The difference between a home that survives a wildfire and one that burns to the foundation often comes down to a strip of ground five feet wide.
That was the central message Gloria Erickson, the area’s Firewise coordinator, delivered to a community gathering at the community college’s theater last week, as she walked residents through the practices that fire officials say give structures the best chance of surviving a wildfire. Her presentation was followed by remarks from a firefighter who responded to the Brimson Complex fire and documented its aftermath.
“It’s not the wall of fire coming through that’s going to take down your house,” Erickson said. “It’s embers.”
Firebrands lofted by a wildfire can travel up to a mile, she said, and the newest research suggests some can travel as far as three miles. What they’re looking for, she told the audience, is somewhere dry to land and smolder.

Zone by zone
Erickson organized her recommendations around concentric zones radiating outward from a structure. The most critical, she said repeatedly, is the zero-to-five-foot zone: the narrow band of ground immediately surrounding every building on a property, including garages, saunas, and outbuildings.
Nothing flammable should exist in that zone. Wood chip mulch, firewood stacked by the door, propane tanks within 10 feet of the house, overhanging branches: all of these, she said, give embers a place to ignite and carry fire to the structure itself.
“After talking with firefighters after the Brimson fire, I’m going to backtrack from my softer position,” she said. “I prefer nothing flammable.”
Pine needles accumulating on roofs, in gutters, and against foundations are among the most common causes of house fires during a wildfire event, she said. Cleaning them off and keeping them clear is one of the cheapest and most effective things a homeowner can do.
From five to 30 feet out, Erickson urged residents to remove balsam trees, which she called “extremely flammable, dead or alive,” and to trim the lower branches of larger conifers to a height of at least six feet. The goal is to eliminate “ladder fuels,” the path by which a ground fire climbs into the canopy. Once a fire crowns, she said, it becomes nearly impossible to control.

Getting firefighters in
Before fire ever reaches a structure, emergency crews have to be able to reach it, Erickson noted. Driveways narrower than 14 feet, or longer than 150 feet without being 20 feet wide, can prevent a fire engine from getting through. Overhanging branches that could clip a truck mirror can cost tens of thousands of dollars in vehicle damage.
Equally important is turnaround space. A fire crew chief, she said, will not send personnel down a driveway unless they can be confident the equipment can get back out. Homeowners should have at least a 30-foot turnaround radius or a hammerhead turn at the end of their drive.
Address signs, she added, should be reflective on both sides and mounted at least four feet off the ground, where they remain visible through smoke and above snow.

Lessons from the Brimson Complex
A firefighter who worked the Brimson Complex fire and later photographed structures in its aftermath, said the conditions during that fire were at the extreme end of what the region sees, with fire danger reaching roughly one percent probability or worse on the scale used at the time.
“We just didn’t have enough resources,” he said of the fire’s speed. “Fire was spreading in so many directions at once.”
His post-fire survey found patterns that aligned closely with what Erickson described. Homes with fuel running right to their foundations burned. Homes with maintained clearance around them survived. A small outbuilding that caught fire radiated enough heat to ignite a nearby main structure, while a barn set farther back was untouched.
He showed video of one cabin that came close to burning because of a narrow strip of uncut vegetation along its foundation. An ember shower had followed the unmowed band like a fuse, charring the siding before the fire ran out of fuel.
“If you have five feet of cleared ground but then six inches of uncut grass against the foundation,” he said, “you don’t have five feet. You have fuel right up against your house.”

What to do
For homeowners wondering where to start, Erickson suggested the following priorities, roughly in order of importance.
Clear pine needles from roofs, gutters, and the area against the foundation. Remove firewood, propane tanks, and other combustibles from within five feet of every structure. Trim back any branches overhanging or touching the roof by at least 10 feet. Enclose the space beneath decks and porches with metal mesh of one-eighth inch or smaller. Install or replace address signs with reflective markers mounted at least four feet high.
None of this, she emphasized, requires clear-cutting. “It’s about spacing and thinning, so the fire doesn’t have a path.”