Start Here

Clear the first five feet

The single biggest reduction in risk available to you, and it costs nothing. Embers land here and look for something to catch. It’s also the focus of California’s new Zone 0 regulation, so you’ll be doing this eventually either way.

• Pull bark mulch, wood chips and dead leaves out of beds against the house — gravel, pavers or bare soil instead
• Move firewood, lumber and cardboard to 30+ feet away
• Take out juniper, bougainvillea and other resinous shrubs touching walls
• Move doormats, furniture cushions and trash bins away from siding
• Clear out everything stored under decks and stairs

Clear your roof and gutters

Gutters and roof valleys are where embers collect and sit. A gutter packed with dry oak leaves is a fuse laid along your roofline.

• Clear gutters, downspouts and roof valleys completely
• Sweep needles and leaves off the roof surface
• Check the roof edge for gaps where embers could get under tiles
• If you have a chimney, check the spark arrester is intact

Screen your vents

Vents are the main route embers take to get inside a house — and once a house is burning from the inside, nothing you did outside matters. This is the highest-value money you can spend on wildfire safety, and it’s permanent.

• Buy 1/8″ metal mesh. Not fiberglass, and not 1/4″ — the gap size is the whole point
• Cover attic, eave, gable, foundation and crawlspace vents
• Screen them, don’t block them — your house needs the airflow
• Don’t forget dryer and bathroom exhaust vents

Move what burns

Getting things out of the first five feet is the priority, but a woodpile at fifteen feet is still a sustained heat source pointed at your house. Push it further out.

• Firewood and lumber to 30+ feet — and downhill of the house rather than above it, if you have the choice
• Propane tanks with 10 feet of cleared space around them
• Trash and recycling bins away from walls and wooden fences
• Stored pallets, spare fencing and construction material out of the zone entirely

Open up the 5 to 30 feet

This is where a ground fire either climbs into the tree canopy or runs out of things to burn. The goal isn’t a bare lot — it’s breaking up the continuous path fire uses to travel.

• Cut branches back 10 feet from the roof and the chimney
• Limb up trees 6–10 feet from the ground so fire can’t ladder up into them
• Space shrubs apart rather than running them as a continuous hedge
• Clear dead material out of and underneath oaks
• Keep the space under decks clear

Native oaks may be protected here — check with Ventura County before removing or heavily pruning one. Clearing dead material and ladder fuels underneath is normally fine and does most of the work anyway.

Set up alerts and your go-plan

Everything above buys your house a chance. This part is about the people in it.

• Sign up for VC Alert so evacuation orders reach your actual address
• Pack a go-bag: medications, documents, chargers, glasses, pet supplies
• Agree a family meeting point and an out-of-area contact everyone can call
• Know two ways out of the valley — the obvious one may be the closed one
• If a neighbor would benefit from a check-in call during fire weather, point them at the At-Risk Registry

Book your free assessment

This is last on purpose. You’ve done the obvious work — now have someone who does this for a living walk your property and tell you what’s actually left. A trained assessor from the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council leaves you a prioritized written list. No cost, no obligation, no sales follow-up.

Their report comes back written in zones — which, having worked through this page, you now speak.