Confession: writing this post makes me a little nervous. It feels like the whole “fire world” is talking about defensible zones and trying to get people to design and maintain them. Here I am, the very phrase “defensible zone” is what I’m going to pick on. I would be lying if I said that I expect it to be well-received. …and I’ll be picking on it again in future blog posts. yikes.
There’s an unintended consequence of calling defensible space “defensible space” without being very clear to our clients about the expectations we can place on it. For the uninitiated (a great many clients), to say we are making a “defensible space” sounds like not only will the space be defended, but that it will be defended successfully. It sounds like a guarantee. That is a dangerous impression to spread; it runs the risk of offering false hope and allowing people to behave in dangerous ways during an emergency. Panicked, stressed people will do panicky things anyway, but if their thinking starts out with errant understanding that they are supposed to be safe, I would put forth that we are doing them a disservice.
Don’t get me wrong, creating and maintaining a defensible space around your property is very important. Guidelines and requirements vary, but it is an important concept and one that a design or maintenance plan can start with. That’s awesome.
However, when we talk to clients, it is important to be clear that just having a defensible space doesn’t guarantee a good outcome during a fire emergency. At a talk I gave in 2018, a homeowner who had lost her home in 2017 spoke to me at the break. She had clearly done her homework and knew a lot about the prevailing guidelines for this. My heart went out to her for the story she told – then she said something I shared with the rest of that audience and I share it with you. I don’t have to paraphrase this, it was a powerful thing she said::
“You can do everything right and still lose your home.”
As landscape professionals working to serve our clients, we owe them the kindness of being clear and gentle with hard truths like these. Don’t shirk it because it is a difficult conversation. Your clients need to be realistically informed before something happens rather than after.
