How to Choose Fire-Resistant Plants for Your Landscape

In this episode of The Evergreen Thumb, expert guest Jim Kropf offers critical insights into selecting fire-resistant plants suitable across the many USDA growing zones in Washington State. Drawing on his extensive experience spanning nearly five decades in WSU Extension, Jim distinguishes between fire-resistant and fireproof plants, helping listeners understand the nuances of these classifications.

Jim lists plant attributes that contribute to a plant’s fire resistance. He also discusses the significance of a plant’s structure, emphasizing that species with an open, loose branching habit are less likely to ignite. He provides examples of both suitable and unsuitable plants for fire resistance, noting that while native species can often thrive in local environments, some—such as Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine—are highly vulnerable to fire despite being native plants.

Jim shares practical ways for landowners to create defensible spaces around their homes to prevent fires from getting too close to living spaces. He also helps listeners understand how to balance water conservation and firewise principles to create gardens that both thrive and act as protection from a possible fire threat.

Listeners can use this episode as a guide to enhance their landscapes with fire-resistant plants, helping to mitigate the risk of wildfire damage in their homes and communities.

• Fire Adapted Washington
• Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW590)
• Fire-Resistant Plants for Eastern Washington
• Beware of Arborvitae Plant Torches
• Firewise Landscapes Chelan/Douglas Counties
• Firewise – It’s Not Just an Eastside Issue By Kevin Zobrist, WSU Forester
• Community Wildfire Resilience and Preparedness | Department of Natural Resources
• King County Emergency Management
• Wildfire Preparedness Resources – WSU Master Gardener Program
• Defensible Space: Practical Steps to Wild Fire Resilienc – Episode 22

[00:00:00] Erin Hoover: Welcome to The Evergreen Thumb, your go-to podcast for up-to-date research-based horticulture and environmental stewardship knowledge to help you grow and manage your garden. Produced by Washington State University Extension Master Gardener Volunteers and brought to you by the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State.

[00:00:16] I’m your host, Erin Hoover, a WSU Extension Master Gardener since 2015 and a certified permaculture designer and modern homesteader.

WSU Master Gardener volunteers are university-trained community educators who have been cultivating plants, people, and communities since 1973. Are you ready to grow? Let’s dig into today’s episode.

Welcome to episode 53 of The Evergreen Thumb.

My guest today is Jim Kropf. Jim is here today to talk to us about fire-resistant plant picks. Jim is the WSU Pierce County Extension Director, the WSU Extension Director of County Administration, as well as the WSU Extension Natural Resources Program leader.

[00:01:00] Jim has been a faculty member for WSU Extension for 47 years. He was the area agronomist in Chelan and Douglas Counties for 14 years, followed by four years as the area horticulturalist for Pierce and King Counties. In addition to providing technical production skills for farmers, he focused on direct marketing training for new farmers and on-farm research related to horticultural crops.

He also continues to provide training and leadership for the WSU Extension Master Gardener program. He has a BS and an MS in agronomy from Washington State University.

Jim, thanks for joining me today. Welcome to the show.

Jim Kropf: Thank you very much. It’s good to be here.

Guest Introduction

Erin Hoover: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work with WSU?

[00:02:00] Jim Kropf: Okay. I’m Jim Kropf. I’ve been part of Washington State University for 48 years. I started 46 years ago now in County Extension. I started out over in Stevens County in 1979, moved to Chelan and Douglas Counties, and had an office in Waterville for 14 years, and then moved back home here to Puyallup in 1995.

And in 1995, I got started in extension administration as a district director and then led natural resource programs for the WSU Extension Director of County Administration. So I work with our county directors and our 40 offices across the state, and lead the Pierce County office.

So, one of the main program opportunities I have is to train Master Gardeners, so I think it’s up to about 12 counties. I do training on various topics for the Master Gardener program.

What Makes a Plant Fire-Resistant?

[00:03:00] Erin Hoover: Great. So you’re here today to talk to us about fire-resistant plant choices for our gardens. And so why don’t we talk about what a, what’s fire-resistant? What makes a plant fire-resistant, and how is that different from fireproof?

Jim Kropf: Similar to waterproof and water resistant, we have plants that could be considered fire-resistant and others that are maybe fireproof. Fire-resistant is if there is a fire next to it, uh, it doesn’t immediately burst into flames, but over time or over a short period of time, it can certainly do a lot of damage to the plant, maybe carry a fire and destroy it.

Something that would be fireproof would be, would not, uh, feel the effects of fire. It would not burn. It would not carry a fire, and, uh, subsequently not die.

[00:04:00] So what makes a plant either, uh, at least fire-resistant or maybe fireproof? If the plant has a high moisture content. All of our plants have a high moisture content, but if a plant is largely dead or has a lot of dead foliage on it, or accumulates a lot of needles and things like that, it is going, that part of the plant’s going to have a low moisture content. So, high moisture content is certainly important.

Uh, low oil or resin content. And you think about working with uh, Douglas fir, you don’t have gloves on, pretty soon you have pitch on your hands, and that would be resin, or pitch in that plant, and that certainly is susceptible to fire. So, plants that have low resin or low oil content is important.

Uh, ones that are drought resistant, they don’t immediately dry up and have dead foliage hanging on them. So if they stay green all throughout, especially the fire season, during the summer and fall, uh, it would be more resistant to fire and drought resistant.

[00:05:03] Plants that are well adapted, that grow well in this area, that have green foliage and new growth that is resistant to fire.

Then, an open, loose branching habit. If we think about a Maple tree and an Oak tree, there are branches, but you can see through the tree, uh, more so than something like a, uh, fir tree, which a Douglas fir tree is pretty much capable of burning anytime during the year.

And probably the best example of a plant catching fire or the worst example of a fireproof plant would be something like junipers or arborvitae, where they can very easily burn, regardless of the time of year.

Native Plants and Fire Resistance

Erin Hoover: Are native plants then generally be considered better suited for fire resistance in the landscape?

Jim Kropf: Native plants can be, but we have to remember that we have native plants like Douglas fir, Ponderosa pine, uh, and, uh, there are native junipers in parts of the dry part of the state. Those are very susceptible to fire, and we’ve seen some of our most devastating wildfires in the state over the last hundred-plus years.

[00:06:03] That includes, uh, Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir trees. So the bark of a Ponderosa pine may not burn, but the needles are very susceptible to fire and carry a fire very well. So native plants can be, but native plants can also be very susceptible to fire.

Uh, we think about native grasses, uh, during the green growing season. Native grasses would be very resistant to fire, but we know what happens to those plants during a hot, long, hot, dry summer and fall after a very moist spring. They make a lot of growth. They go dormant during the summer. There is literally a ton of dead growth out there that is very susceptible to fire.

[00:06:43] So many of our native plants stay green year-round. Uh, they can burn, but they don’t really carry a fire or not really susceptible to fire like uh, a conifer tree would be. But overall, native plants, year in, year out, regardless of the climate, can be more resistant to fire. But again, they are absolutely capable of burning.

How Fire-Resistant Plant Recommendations Vary Across Washington

Erin Hoover: How would fire-resistant plant recommendations vary in the different regions or different ecosystems within Washington?

Jim Kropf: Yeah, there, there’s no quick answer to that one. I mean, we range from, I don’t know, 300 inches of rainfall in the Olympic Rainforest to, uh, six to eight inches of precipitation when we get out to land and vantage and some of the very dry parts of the state.

So, and we go from sea level to over 14,000 feet in elevation. We go from areas that, uh, don’t get much in the way of a frost right along the coast to, we lived in Waterville, where I remember one winter it got down to 28 below zero. So, there’s no one, uh, one answer for all of our ecosystems or climates across the state.

[00:07:59] Uh, we have, however, a lot of choices in Western Washington. We have a fairly mild climate and, you know, not everything grows here, but pretty much, things will grow here either on an annual basis or will be adapted as a perennial and providing it doesn’t have, like I talked about in an earlier answer, you know, if it has, uh, low, uh, resin content, uh, it’s drought resistant, it’s well adapted, it know those plants are gonna grow well in Western Washington,

Eastern Washington, we’re gonna have limitations. We have a lower USDA hardiness zone. So, uh, not everything grows over there that grows in Western Washington. So you have to be a little bit more choosy about, uh, what you select to make sure it’s adapted to the climate. First of all, will it survive the winter, will it survive the hot summer, and then, uh, look at some of the attributes of those plants to make sure it’s not as susceptible to burning.

[00:09:00] Erin Hoover: I think a lot of people don’t really realize how varied our climates are in Washington. I looked at a map once, and I think the USDA climate zones range from like three all the way to nine, which is pretty extreme.

Jim Kropf: It is. And then year in and year out, we’re gonna have variations. This year in Puyallup, we didn’t get our first frost until December 2nd, which is unheard of.

And then we went through the rest of December without any temperatures lower than 30 degrees. We finally got some cooler temperatures, where it was in the mid-twenties, but some areas of the state didn’t even get that cold. So, um, just the overall warming of the climate, over the last 50 years, and then looking at rainfall differences, who would’ve thought that three years ago here in parts of King and Pierce County, we would’ve reached 116 degrees, and not for one day, but for multiple days.

[00:10:00] And seeing Western red cedar and seeing other conifer trees in the Issaquah area, all the new growth in July, just absolutely brown, where it should have been a nice lime green color. So all of those types of things certainly set us up for more difficult choices to make sure things are adaptable and can grow in our climates.

How is Plant Maintenance a Part of Fire-Resistant Landscaping

Erin Hoover: How much does maintenance factor into the fire resistance of landscaping?

Jim Kropf: It’s huge. I do Master Gardener training, and I focus on Pierce County, but I’ve also done a couple of other counties also where I do teach the Master Gardeners, the interns or the trainees about it.

It depends on the county; sometimes it’s called fire-resistant landscaping. Sometimes it’s called wildfire preparation, but whatever we call it, maintenance and planning are a huge part of this effort. So, when we look at some of the things that we consider, absolutely proper plant selection. Do not plant highly flammable plants such as arborvitae and junipers, especially close to buildings.

 [00:11:06] So this was very, very common back in the 1960s, ‘70s, and earlier years. Junipers were very available there, very cheap to plant. They required very little moisture and did great. Unfortunately, they’re one of our more flammable plants. So, proper plant selection is number one.

Number two, rake up dead leaves, rake up conifer needles. Don’t let those accumulate in the plant under the plant, on the roof, in the house, in the gutters of the house, anywhere that they can be exposed to fire. Just have them cleaned up and put ‘em in the compost pile. Put ‘em in the yard bin, get rid of them so they don’t present a problem, if fire comes your way.

Remove low branches that are close to the ground where a ground fire can move up a tree and potentially to a building.

[00:12:04] And we see some of our weeping trees, weeping conifers, where the branches go right down to the ground, and if there was any kind of a surface fire, say fireworks or a cigarette, started a Bar Harbor juniper on fire. It was burning, then it caught a low-hanging branch of a conifer on fire, and then moved up the tree.

That’s bad. So we can limb up a tree a little bit just to have space between the ground and the branches. So a fire does not move up a tree and potentially catch a building on fire.

Watering is important. Keep the landscape properly watered during the hot, dry season and follow, uh, good irrigation practices. We don’t have to put a ton of water on there, but we can time our irrigation to rainfall, how hot it is, and do a good job of conserving water while keeping our plants in good shape and less susceptible to fire.

[00:12:56] People who are on a well or are out in rural areas certainly need to be cognizant of it because they do not have an unlimited water supply.

Even if you’re on a municipal water system, there may be water restrictions during real hot, dry periods of time, or your budget may limit how much water can be put on a yard. Uh, simple things don’t stack firewood next to your house or on your porch, something that can easily catch on fire if there is a fire and spread to the house. Many people plant lawn alternatives, but a green lawn is a great fire barrier.

So, we talk about a lawn having little habitat value. People complain about, well, you can’t eat it, it’s high maintenance, you use a lot of pesticides, fertilizers, and water. Well, this is a good time when a green mowed lawn is one of our best friends if you are in an area that is prone to wildfire, or if a wildfire does happen, uh, in your neighborhood.

[00:14:01] So, lots of opportunities for proper maintenance just to prevent things from happening.

How Can Homeowners Prevent Wildfires

Erin Hoover: How can homeowners make a difference in preventing wildfires in the first place?

Jim Kropf: Part of it is certainly education. Teaching neighbors. Being involved in the Master Gardener program is a great way. Implementing those practices in your yard so you don’t have weaknesses that are very easy to prevent or solve, which can cause problems.

You know, it used to be all of our houses around here, a good share of the houses were roofed with cedar shakes. With cedar shakes, also called kindling, if you were to have a fire really burning in an area, and then there are embers, one of the easiest places to start a fire is on a cedar shake roof.

[00:14:53] I use a neighbor down the street, his place, uh, in as a PowerPoint slide because there was a cedar shake roof on the house. There was cedar shake siding, which was very common in the 1940s and 1950s. A cedar fence that comes up to the house, you know, kind of doing everything wrong, and if a fire ever starts, uh, yeah, it, it can be bad in spreading that fire.

So, homeowners can, they can take notice, they can do an assessment of their property, they can do their own thing, certainly to mitigate or reduce the risk.

Anything can happen. Who would’ve thought we would be in the news daily in the Los Angeles area in early January when we start talking about 15,000 or more structures destroyed? And these aren’t just houses located out in subdivisions, out in the brush or in the trees. These are city blocks located in areas of Los Angeles where you’d never think fire would spread.

[00:16:00] You know, when a fire happens like that, if you’re in an area that’s getting 50, 60, or 70 mile an hour winds, and this has happened in Eastern Washington, this even happened, uh, labor Day 2020 in Western Washington, it’s very hard to stop a fire and the embers are gonna, uh, blow for miles.

But you can do things to help mitigate the risk, short of a disaster hitting an area.

Balancing Water Conservation and Maintaining Fire-Safe Landscapes

Erin Hoover: How can gardeners balance water conservation with maintaining a safe fire landscape?

Jim Kropf: That’s where native plants can really come into play. Plants that are adapted to the area they’re better acclimated to an area and more adapted to surviving hot, dry summers.

Proper planting techniques can certainly help, so you’re planting properly to allow that plant to thrive. Uh, improving soil through compost and things like that. So plants do better, and all of this helps conserve water. And then when people are watering, don’t turn the irrigation system on for 10 minutes every day, whether it rained an inch that night, or it was 100 degrees that day, and we haven’t had any rain in months.

[00:17:00] You know, how much water is required per week for that lawn. Take into account any effective precipitation and, uh, you know, balance that with your, uh, available water or your home budget to make sure you’re able to afford that water or have that water available and adjust accordingly.

If a lawn for Western Washington requires one inch of available water per week, that’s ideal, but um, some weeks it’s cooler. Some weeks we get some rain. Some weeks it’s warmer. You can certainly adjust down, and you don’t always have to have the perfect lawn, the perfect plant. So adjust accordingly.

Fire-Resistant Plant Suggestions

Erin Hoover: Can you suggest some specific, uh, fire-resistant plants that are good for landscapes?

Jim Kropf: You know, I mean, there’d be a, there would be a whole laundry list. PNW590 Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes is an example of a publication that has many suggestions in it that would be good. I believe that one is suited for the whole state.

[00:18:20] Uh, others are, some counties are gonna have specific, uh, planting sheets that will give local recommendations for plants that would be, uh, more fire-resistant. But what we, what’s easier to talk about are some of those characteristics that make a plant more fire-resistant or those that are susceptible to fire.

So, what should we avoid when you are selecting plants to put in your home landscape?

[00:18:50] Avoid plants that contain fine, dry, or dead material with the plant. And if you ever look at an arborvitae shrub and say it’s 20 years old. You take the branches, you open it up, you’ll look inside, and you’ll find literally gallons of dead needles, scales, foliage sitting in there, plus fine dead branches. All of that will burn immediately. If a firework sits out a cigarette hits that, it’s gonna burn very rapidly.

Leaves, twigs, and stems that contain volatile waxes, terpenes, or oils. So oils, resin. Uh, if anyone grew up in California, you think about eucalyptus and what eucalyptus oil smells like. All of those types of things are very volatile and can burn.

Leaves that are aromatic or have a strong odor when crushed. Think about some of our conifers and think about eucalyptus. The sap is gummy, resinous, and has a strong odor. So fir trees, uh, may have looser papery bark. You know, you think about birch trees and the native, you know, growing more in, uh, more moist areas, but anything that has real loose bark can burn versus something like a ponderosa pine bark that can be multiple inches thick and not burn so easily.

[00:20:13] So those are ones certainly, uh, to avoid. Again, most deciduous trees and shrubs are fire-resistant. Both native and ornamental plants can be highly flammable. Fire-resistant plants have leaves that are moist and supple. They have little dead wood. They don’t accumulate leaves or dry material in their inner core. The sap is more water-like, and sap or resin materials are low.

So, when you, uh, feel the leaf crush, a leaf break, a branch, or anything like that, you can get an idea just from that list of what would be a good plant to, uh, plant if you’re looking for fire-resistant.

[00:21:00] Erin Hoover: Okay. And we will link to that PNW590, to that publication, so listeners can download that and use that as a reference as well.

The Importance of Defensible Zones in Fire-Resistant Planting

Jim Kropf: Chelan-Douglas has their fire-resistant plant selections publication. I think that’s separate from 590. They also have a publication called Arborvitae Plant Torches, and many of these publications will also talk about, uh, zones in your yard, uh, such as defensible space, uh, zero to five feet from the house.

You don’t want flames touching your house, so be careful about what you plant really close to the house and don’t have it touching the house or branches hanging over the roof of your house. Five to 30 feet stops the fire spread. That 30-foot area, you’re in that defensible space.

And this was in Puyallup about three years ago, and it was just a mile down, uh, from the experiment station, and it was mid-May.

[00:22:10] All of a sudden, there’s the fire alarm. You hear sirens, and in mid-May, uh, an arborvitae hedge accidentally caught on fire, and the fire just raced down that hedge. It was only about 10 feet from the house. Thankfully, it was a brick house, so the house sides or walls did not catch on fire, but you get up to the ease, and uh, you have wood.

You have the soft vents or the vents in the attic that could suck the embers right in there, which it did, and caught the attic on fire. So then you have an attic fire, and the firefighters have to get in there to put out the fire. If there was defensible space, they may have had a chance. If there was a wood-sided house, it probably would’ve been a total loss, even though the fire station is only about a half a mile from the house, because it happened so fast.

[00:23:03] Uh, the neighbor’s house wasn’t touched. There was an asphalt driveway. It was about 20 feet away. Uh, it didn’t go back any further because the next planting, the hedge extended into a laurel hedge, which singed the edge of the laurel hedge, but it stopped it from carrying the fire any further.

And so the arborvitae hedge was taken out. It was replaced with a, uh, six-foot-high steel fence or a, uh, steel bar fence that looks really nice and kind of a hard way to learn a lesson. But there are more and more stories around that.

And it’s important to note, I condition my presentation to Master Gardeners in Pierce County, that even though you may live in downtown Tacoma or the north end of Tacoma in a residential area, we’re all still susceptible to fire.

[00:23:47] Some of you live in a hundred-year-old homes that would burn very quickly. But remember, we have people that smoke, there are construction accidents, we have homeless encampments where there are campfires and propane tanks involved. That can easily spread. There can be a car that catches on fire just on the other side of your hedge that you don’t even know that’s there, and I’ve seen some of the worst fires around start along, especially I-5, along the freeway.

We’re in the middle of summer. Somebody pitches out a cigarette, it scoots across the shoulder of the road into three-foot-tall dead grass, catches that grass on fire, races up the hillside, and typically, what’s at the top of the hillside besides houses? Well, maybe there’s that arborvitae hedge. Maybe there’s that cedar fence followed by an arborvitae hedge with a short, short space of lawn, and then wood siding or um, vinyl siding that absolutely melts and catches a house on fire.

So, I’m always very, very concerned about houses built along freeways because they’re kind of an accident waiting to happen.

[00:24:57] So as building codes have changed, that’s been very helpful in our subdivisions because many of our houses are only six to 10 feet apart and they have some type of a concrete fiber siding that is, uh, obviously very fire-resistant and helps reduce the chance of fire spreads.

Fire-Resistant Plants for Urban Areas

Erin Hoover: Well, that kind of leads. My next question was about the real possibilities the real possibility in urban areas, and I think that’s all in the forefront of a lot of people’s minds with the fires in LA, you think you’re not gonna have a wildfire that spreads into an urban neighborhood, but we’ve seen it happen in California.

Jim Kropf: Yeah, and I’ve seen enough cases, especially like in arborvitae plantings, just in our extension office in Tacoma, there was one, uh, planted island out in the parking lot, and I think it was, I don’t know if it’s a cigarette or if somebody was just trying to cause trouble and started that, uh, little island on fire and it completely destroyed the junipers. I mean, it was 50 feet to a building, so it didn’t cause any problems in that.

[00:26:00] But know that those kinds of things can be, can be real problems. So we don’t want to have problems from things that can be easily prevented, but being in a highly urban environment certainly doesn’t, doesn’t prevent fire from happening.

Labor Day 2020, uh, we had the fire in Sumner, and where I sit, it’s only about two miles as the crow flies across the valley to where that fire hit, uh, in the middle of the night. Red flag warnings for the previous few days from an east wind, and just like LA, we know whether it’s winter or summer, nothing ever good comes out of an east, east wind in this area, and it was 90 degrees.

[00:27:00] You have very low humidity, and I believe that one, they ended up finding that, uh, a power line caused a problem, but it burned, uh, in the trees, it burned into a subdivision. It caused, uh, you know, many other issues and some of the pictures I have, and the night pictures, you’d swear it was somewhere in Eastern Washington or some other part of the country, not in very urban Western Washington.

And I’ve got a lot of other pictures from, uh, this area where, uh, most of the fires have started along major commuting routes and spread from there.

And we have had a loss of life also two years ago in Lakewood, where, uh, close to the freeway, a pasture fire started, uh, got into a mobile home park, destroyed a couple of trailers, and killed a couple of people.

Steps Gardeners Can Take to Make their Gardens more Fire-Resistant.

Erin Hoover: So, what steps can gardeners take to retrofit an existing garden for better fire resistance?

[00:28:00] Jim Kropf: Uh, assess what you have. If you have plants that are beyond their life for all practical purposes, they’re weak, they just aren’t healthy, and there are dead branches. Consider what to take out. Consider what to prune back, where it’s close to the house, and, you know, consider not planting things, uh, so close to the house.

It can be not only for, um, fire reduction, but it can also be for security. Where you can’t have people, you know, looking in windows, I suppose, and having the security of cover. And also, uh, insects getting into the house, rodents, and things like that. Just plant plants a little bit further away from the house and avoid foundation plantings and maintain, uh, that type of space.

So one of the best things people can do is thin, weed out, and plant things that are smaller, slower-growing. And, you know, using the tips on how to, I guess, uh, assess a plant for its, um, ability to burn or not burn.

Critical Takeaways for Gardeners in Fire-Prone Areas

Erin Hoover: Based on recent wildfire seasons in Washington, what are the most critical takeaways for gardeners in fire-prone areas?

[00:29:00] Jim Kropf: Uh, in fire-prone areas? Um, uh, I guess. Plan for the worst and hope for the best is always kinda what you think. I know there are places in Eastern Washington where if we have high temperatures, low humidity, strong winds, you know, even a mile or two buffer, uh, isn’t going to prevent fire from coming through an area.

We’ve seen that up in the Okanagan in 2014 with the absolute worst conditions. Um, people can become part of a Firewise community, and this is quite often led by a local conservation district where people work together to mitigate fire issues, learn about wildfire behavior, and have a wildfire plan, including fire breaks installed, uh, water availability, an emergency plan for escape, and things like that.

[00:30:02] So people have to think much beyond just the home landscape, but they absolutely have to provide that, uh, defensible space, knowing the normal conditions that you can, can have during the summer wildfire season in many areas of Eastern Washington, and don’t compound the problem by planting high risk plants close to the house or other buildings.

Resources for Fire-Resistant Landscaping

Erin Hoover: You mentioned the Firewise communities. Um, are there other resources to help communities implement Fire-resistant landscaping?

Jim Kropf: Uh, yeah. The Washington Department of Natural Resources has resources, Conservation Districts, and I mentioned ours, where we have an Extension Forestry Team. They don’t get so much into fire control or fire outreach, you know, they more help people recover after a fire.

But there can be local tip sheets, uh, that we have in our extension offices.

[00:30:57] Fire departments, they have safety days quite often, and they can have giveaways, assessment sheets, and how to develop an emergency plan.

Then, many counties have, or all counties have, emergency management departments. I know King County, for example, has a very well-developed, uh, emergency management plan when it comes to wildfires. That’s a good website to look at also, and I think they stated 85% of all wildfires are human-caused. I’ve seen, uh, figures over 90% are human-caused. Even if it’s power lines, people built power lines, nature may help bring ‘em down, or a lack of maintenance didn’t help the situation.

Uh, but again, when you consider the ways that nature starts fires. Lightning. Maybe a lava flow, and beyond that, it pretty much comes down to humans being the cause of wildfire. So, anyway, we can put safety in the equation, mitigate human activity when it comes to wildfire, we’d be much better served.

[00:32:00] Erin Hoover: Thanks for joining me. This was fun.

Jim Kropf: You betcha.

Erin Hoover: Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Evergreen Thumb, brought to you by the WSU Extension Master Gardener Program volunteers and sponsored by the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State.

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