Forest Falls Demonstration House

On June 26th the San Bernardino MAST Agencies participated in a Defensible Space Demonstration. The event was designed to show local residents and absentee home owners how to make their homes and properties more resistive to wildfire utilizing defensible space standards, San Bernardino County's new green fuels fire hazard abatement code and healthy forest practices.

This is the second year of the program which involves selecting a local home within the target area. Letters are sent to all the property owners in the area by San Bernardino County Fire Hazard Abatement. CAL FIRE Foresters go through the area and mark the vegetation that needs to be removed. Then a San Bernardino County Fuels Crew with grant funding from the United States Forest Service moves in and clears the land.

Local residents and property owners were encouraged to visit the demonstration property during which they received a guided tour. During the tour, participants were given information about proper vegetation management procedures to create and maintain defensible space. The local Fire Safe Council was also on hand to answer questions about fire safe activities in the area.

More than 300 people visited the demonstration property out of the 700 notices that had been mailed out. Some of the property owners came from as far away as Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties to see how they could make their properties more defensible from wildfire.
One Property owner stated "a picture is worth a thousand words and now I know what defensible space looks like". http://www.readyforwildfire.org/