Fire prevention is not as important a service for people living in our area, because residents and businesses alike have enjoyed the humidity and semi-tropical weather of Southeast Louisiana and Mississippi, which holds moisture in the air. However, in the past 10 to 15 years, the weather trends during the hotter months have become increasingly hotter and drier with multiple days of temperatures in the 90’s to over 100 degrees.
In the past few years alone, there has been an increase of days and weeks of burn bans in the Greater New Orleans area, including the Northshore. For homeowners, land owners, and businesses, it’s now important to know your options for fire prevention around your valuable property. At KNB Services, we offer multiple choices for the different steps of fire prevention.
For flat land with mostly grass and small brush and weeds, easy fire preventative maintenance would be to keep the land cut and trimmed, to cull any overgrowth which would provide fuel for fires.
For land with mature trees, small to medium-sized trees, large bushes, tree clusters, and ground debris, below are the recommended steps for fire prevention.
Fire Prevention Tips From KNB Services
Clear Large Debris
Assuming you have “forests” of trees on your property, the first step is to clean out the large limbs and branches that cannot be easily mulched by a track loader with a forestry mulcher attachment. This may require a manually or machine removal of this large debris.
Forestry Mulching
Forestry mulching can a lot of the work needed for fire prevention, quickly and efficiently. One operator can work the mulcher through your treeline to effectively chop up the brush, shrubs, branches, and ground debris that would catch fire quickly and cause it to move rapidly across the ground. Mulching also creates a fresh top soil layer that holds the soil beneath, promotes growth of smaller grass, preventing erosion during dry conditions, and generally fertilizes the earth underneath your trees.
Increase Canopy Height
This doesn’t mean what it sounds like! We’re not telling you to grow taller trees, rather, reducing the height of the “in-between,” medium trees which grow underneath the tallest trees on your property. When fire is moving through, it can use the ground, bushes, small trees, and medium trees to “step-up” to the tallest trees. Once it reaches the tallest branches, with the help of strong wind, fire can quickly move from tree-to-tree rapidly escalating the forest fire.
Eliminate New Tree Growth
KNB Services recommends removing smaller trees and trees that are just starting to grow, as they are most of the time, scraggly, sprawling trees that act just like overgrowth of brush, vines, and bushes, which act as fuel for wildfires.
Thin Tree Clusters
Tree thinning can be applied to any size trees, but KNB Services will give you a free estimate to advise you on removing strategic trees in an area that has an overgrowth or cluster of trees. By thinning out the treeline, you create space for the fire to “die” as it tries to move through a thick area of brush, bushes, and trees.
Cut a Fire Break
This is not as common in Southeast Louisiana and Mississippi as it would be for a large forest or national park. However, for larger tracts of land, which might be prone to fire danger, you can create a fire break, which can range from one yard to several yards wide, by clearing trees and using the track loader to mulch the newly cleared fire line. The result is a distinct completely cleared trail with a large growth of trees on either side.
Continuous Tree Maintenance
After we provide an initial fire prevention plan for your property, KNB Services recommends that you get your land evaluated on a regular basis to continually maintain and hold back new growth or regrowth of the cleared areas. This is especially important in the tropical weather of Southeast Louisiana where regrowth can occur rapidly.
