Review by Allen Best
Fire – June 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Living with Wildfires: Prevention, Preparation, and Recovery
by Janet C. Arrowood
Published in 2003
by Bradford Publishing Co., Denver
ISBN 1-883726-89-1
THERE’S A SOLID $12 book in this $19.95 package. This book not only rounds the bases of what you need to know about the threat of wildland fire if you live in the woods, it describes very nearly ever step in rounding the bases.
For those who live amid the whispering pines as well as chattering conifers, jabbering junipers and all the rest, this book tells all. It explains our changing forest mosaics, and why we suddenly are having forest fires left and right. It describes how fires occur and spread, which varies among different forest types and age classifications.
From this biological primer the book continues on to explain how to create defensible spaces for a home amid the vegetation and what sort of building materials to use. Not least, it explains what last-minute precautions are advised if a fire is rolling your way.
Some of this is obvious, common sense stuff, but there are surprises. For example, who would think that a broom left standing on a front porch could be the vulnerability that would cause a home to burn? Ah, but what if it got caught in the forest fire?
This book lays out options A through E, then D through Z.
And if you have escaped the fire, but must return to a partially or fully consumed house? Again, there’s everything you’ve likely thought about, and more. For example, leave your cell phone in the car, as it could ignite volatile gasses. There are also recommendations for dealing with insurance companies as well as being on the look-out for shady contractors.
This is all useful information, clearly written, for those who live in forested areas where acres outnumber people. The book is also reasonably well organized, so that you can quickly tackle the topic of concern without wading through page after page.
Only once did I wish for more detail. I expected a little more about how fire regimes vary depending upon ecosystems. The fire risk of a thicket of oak brush at 7,000 feet is dramatically different from that of a spruce forest at 10,000 feet, but this book doesn’t specifically address those differences. A discussion of fire in sagebrush communities may have been useful, too, since that’s the real wildfire threat in many places.
But mostly, I wished for less. A variety of well-intentioned but unnecessary forwards and afterwards and so forth padded the book to perhaps a third longer than necessary. That puffiness aside, however, even at $19.95 this book is a good investment for somebody living in that iffy interface of domesticity and wildlands.
— Allen Best