Fire-safe landscaping

Wildfires pose a threat to forests and homes, even in temperate western Washington. Homeowners can help protect people and property by using techniques for building siting, construction and landscaping that create a defensible space around structures. Learn tips for creating beautiful and fire-safe landscapes from our new brochure, Fire Safety Tips for Rural Homeowners, or read our list of fire-resistant plants for the Puget Sound Basin (PDF).

Community fire planning

Community Fire Plans can help prevent the loss of lives, property and resources to wildfire while encouraging neighbors to practice sustainable forest management. Studies have shown that fire safe forests can also be healthy forests. Forests with sufficient growing space for trees are not only less susceptible to fire, properly managed forests are healthier and more drought tolerant that forests where trees are crowded together with many dead lower limbs or dry brush.

Through free neighborhood consultation sessions and personal visits, staff foresters and fire marshals help neighbors identify risk factors such as lack of fire truck access to their homes or fire prone vegetation growing too close to houses. To find out more, contact Kristi McClelland, King County Forester. These services are free to residents of unincorporated King County.

Community Fire Planning is funded in part by Federal funds allocated to counties under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000.

This service page is provided by the King County Forestry Program.