Get your home FireSmart before wildfire season
A practical guide to the Home Ignition Zone, the 0 to 1.5 m, 1.5 to 10 m, and 10 to 30 m areas around your home, with the top actions to reduce wildfire risk.
Most homes that ignite during a wildfire are not lost to a wall of flame. They are lost to embers. Wind can carry burning embers far ahead of a fire, and they collect in dry debris on roofs, in gutters, against fences, and under decks. The good news is that the things you do in the area immediately around your home have an outsized effect on whether it survives. This is the idea behind FireSmart and the Home Ignition Zone.
The Home Ignition Zone is the space around your house divided into three areas. Work from the building outward, because the closest zone matters most.
0 to 1.5 m: the immediate zone
This is the most important area and the one to get right first. The goal is to leave nothing here that an ember can ignite. Keep this strip free of combustible mulch, dead leaves, dry grass, firewood, and stored items. Use non-combustible ground cover such as gravel, rock, or bare soil right against the foundation. Move firewood piles, propane tanks, and recycling well away. Keep plants in this zone to a minimum and choose low, well-watered, fire-resistant ones rather than woody shrubs that dry out. Clear your roof and gutters of needles and leaves, and make sure vents are screened so embers cannot get inside.
1.5 to 10 m: the intermediate zone
In this zone the aim is to break up fuel so a fire cannot move easily toward the house. Space trees and shrubs so their canopies do not touch, and remove ladder fuels, the low branches and brush that let a ground fire climb into the tree tops. Keep grass mowed and watered, and clear dead vegetation regularly. Move sheds, fences, and anything that could carry flame toward the house, and consider non-combustible materials for fencing and gates that connect to the building. A wooden fence is a wick that leads fire straight to your wall.
10 to 30 m: the extended zone
Further out, the goal is to thin and reduce, not clear everything. Remove dead and downed wood, thin dense stands of trees, and keep the area free of accumulated debris. Well-spaced, healthy trees in this zone slow a fire and reduce the intensity of what reaches your home. This is also a good place to keep a continuous, low-growing surface rather than tall dry grass.
A few high-value actions
If you only have a weekend, start here. Clean your roof and gutters. Clear the first 1.5 m around the foundation completely. Move firewood and propane away from the house. Screen your vents. Trim branches away from the roof and remove ladder fuels near the home. Each of these directly reduces the chance an ember finds something to burn.
Make it routine
Hardening your home is not a one-time job. Debris builds up, plants grow, and grass dries out through the season, so walk your property regularly and keep the zones in shape. Our preparedness checklists turn all of this into a list you can work through, and our wildfire safety library goes deeper on roofs, vents, decks, and fire-resistant landscaping.
To see exactly which actions matter most for your own property, run our free Home Ignition Zone assessment. It walks you through your home and yard and gives you a focused list to act on before fire season. These steps reflect widely used FireSmart Canada guidance, and your local FireSmart or fire authority can offer assessments and advice specific to your area.
See live fires, evacuation alerts, air quality, and road closures for Western Canada and 18 western US states on our free live map, then run through the preparedness checklists before fire season.
More from our wildfire news and safety updates.