Videos - Fire Safe Marin

Prepare Yourself

Powered & Prepared. This webinar covers emergency resources and training for people with disabilities in Marin. We all need to be part of a strategic plan that sets people up for success and gets them the resources they need to get out of harm's way. Speakers: Eli Geradin (Executive Director of Marin Center for Independent Living) walks through emergency plans that take into consideration different needs and abilities. Mary Davis, Hattie Cook and Debra Judd share personal stories of emergency preparation and the power of community. Maurice Pollard (Marin CIL), Jody Timms (Marin Commission on Aging) and Adrianna Radkin (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters) talk about the network of resources that can help Marin residents. Living with Fire in Marin webinar series (August 2021) - Highlights Reel

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It Takes a Community: How to support individuals with access and functional needs

Monday September 13, 2021

Joel Laucher, Insurance Consultant (Regulatory Insurance Advisors and United Policyholders) shares his expertise and the latest information and resources about the fire insurance industry in California. Living with Fire in Marin County webinar series (July 2021)

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How to Choose your Fire Insurance

Saturday August 14, 2021

Janet Ruiz, Director - Strategic Communications (Insurance Information Institute) shares her expertise and the latest information and resources about fire insurance in California. Living with Fire in Marin County webinar series (July 2021)

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Are You Financially Prepared for Wildfire?

Saturday August 14, 2021

Amy Bach, Executive Director (United Policyholders) presents the latest information and resources about fire insurance in California - how to keep your assets insured and how to navigate a difficult insurance market; what to do if you've been non-renewed or dropped by your insurance company; and, what preparedness and advocacy is being done to fix the insurance problem. Living with Fire in Marin County webinar series (July 2021)

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10 things you need to know about fire insurance

Saturday August 14, 2021

Julie Atwood of the Halter Project shares her extensive knowledge and experience of emergency planning for equine and livestock. Julie answers questions, shares stories and gives advice about how to create defensible space around your home, barn and animals’ shelters; how to think through an evacuation plan and have a checklist; and, provides guidelines that will give animals the best chance of survival. Living with Fire in Marin County (June 2021)

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How to Save Horses & Livestock from Wildfire

Saturday July 10, 2021

Wildfire preparedness includes care for our pets. Captain Cindy Machado of Marin Humane shares her extensive knowledge and experience of emergency planning, care and rescue for house pets and small animals. Includes advice on creating an evacuation plan, having a checklist and knowing available resources. Living with Fire in Marin County (June 2021)

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Pet Preparation: before, during, and after wildfire

Saturday July 10, 2021

Dr. Shannamar Dewey, a world class athlete and professor of physiology, shares her evacuation and survival story from the Paradise Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.

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Paradise Survival Story

Sunday December 20, 2020

Central Marin Fire Department Battalion Chief Todd Lando reviews the essential elements of FIRESafe MARIN's evacuation checklist including: evacuation orders and warnings, essential communication strategies, critical items to bring with you, pet preparedness, evacuation route strategies and actions to help protect your home from wildfire.

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How to make a Wildfire Evacuation Checklist

Sunday December 20, 2020

Central Marin Fire Department Battalion Chief Todd Lando describes the various wildfire alerting systems including Alert Marin, Nixle, Wireless Emergency Alerts, and NOAA alerts. He further discusses the meaning of alerting messaging such as evacuation orders and evacuation warnings.

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How to know a wildfire is near your

Sunday December 20, 2020

Central Marin Fire Department Battalion Chief Todd Lando discusses how to create a Go Kit with essential items for family members, what to do about your pets if you need to evacuate due to wildfire, the proper way to dress during evacuation and additional items to bring with you to keep you safe.

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How to Make a Go Kit for Family and Pets

Sunday December 20, 2020

Harden Your Home

Resources, how-tos, checklists, and personal stories on how to prepare yourself for a wildfire.

Join Fire Safe Marin DIY expert Arann Harris as he helps a resident protect her home from wildfire during a Red Flag Warning weather event.

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How to Protect Your Home from Fire!

Friday September 24, 2021

Steve Quarles, Ph.D., UC cooperative
extension advisor emeritus, reviews
the pros and cons of active strategies
for home hardening, namely
exterior sprinkler systems, gels,
and aluminized laminate wrap.

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Can sprinkler systems save your home?

Tuesday February 23, 2021

Practical steps you can take to protect your home when fire is nearby or approaching your home. How and when to make the decision to leave. January 2021

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What to do when a wildfire is near your house...

Tuesday February 23, 2021

Each month FIRESafe Marin presents webinars to help our community prepare for wildfires and reduce the threat to their homes. On November 17th, Steve Quarles and Jack Cohen talked with us about ways to make our homes more resistant to ember ignition. Here are a few highlights from this conversation. Please go to the FIRESafe Marin Youtube channel to view the full webinar

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Steve Quarles and Jack Cohen - Reducing Wildfire Risk to Homes

Monday November 30, 2020

September 29, 2020 from 11:30 am – 12:30 pm Christina Restaino, Natural Resource Specialist with University of Nevada, Reno Extension’s Living With Fire Program talked to residents about how to reduce the wildfire threat by retrofitting one’s home.

To learn more about how homes are vulnerable to ignition from embers and mitigation recommendations read out publication "Be Ember Aware, Will Youe Home Survive When the Embers Arrive?" : https://naes.agnt.unr.edu/PMS/Pubs/1510_2005_89.pdf?utm_source=publications&utm_medium=pub-download&utm_campaign=pub-link-clicks&utm_content=2965

And to learn more about preparing your family and property for wildfire visit livingwithfire.com

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Retrofitting Your Home to Increase Wildfire Survival

Wednesday October 7, 2020

Decks are used for many family and social activities. A deck that is attached to a home can threaten the home if ignited by the wildfire. Once ignited, a burning deck can threaten your home by breaking glass in window or sliding glass doors, igniting your siding and burning into house, and by flames spreading vertically and laterally up the siding into the area under the eave and entering the attic.

Minimizing the chance that a deck will ignite, and if it should it ignite, minimizing the chance that fire can spread to your home is an important part of hardening your home against wildfire. In this video how your deck can be ignited during a wildfire will be reviewed, as will actions you can take to make your new or existing deck less vulnerable.

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Protect Your Deck from Wildfire

Monday September 28, 2020

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How to Protect Your Deck from Wildfire

Monday September 28, 2020

FIRESafe MARIN strongly discourages the use of foam insert gutter guard materials, even if the manufacturer makes claims related to fire-resistance. In our informal testing, these materials were highly combustible, ignite easily, and spread fire rapidly. We've contacted the California State Fire Marshal and Consumer Product Safety Commission to ask for assistance in removing these products which are being aggressively marketed to homeowners in the WUI.

In this video, a small amount of leafy debris was applied to DAMP foam gutter guard, sold at Home Depot with "Fire Resistant" in the product's name! Although the leafy material barely sustained flame, the foam material ignited readily and sustained combustion, exhibiting 12-16" flames and emitting acrid black smoke.

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Foam Gutter Guard Material: BEWARE - Not Wildfire Safe!

Friday June 28, 2019

Dr. Jack Cohen, a highly respected expert on wildfire behavior and fire science research, explains how fireproofing your home can help protect it from wildfire. A high intensity flame from a wildfire is less likely to ignite the home than “fire brands”—the hot embers that are spit from the intense flames and then deposited on flammable materials on or surrounding the home. That’s why it’s recommended you use landscaping as one of the defensive methods against wildfire.

Jack shows how leaves, pine needles, and other debris from wooded areas can become easy fuel for fire brands. Fire-resistant furniture and home building materials can also help protect your home from being destroyed by a wildfire.

Learn more about wildfire prevention and mitigation at www.firewise.org and www.nfpa.org/wildfire. Also visit www.disastersafety.org/wildfire for additional resources.

© 2015 National Fire Protection Association® (NFPA®). All rights reserved.

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Your Home Can Survive a Wildfire

Monday November 9, 2015

Create a Fire Smart Yard

Find out how homes ignite and discover strategies for protecting your home against wildfires.

Learn how to balance the need to conserve water during drought and still have a thriving, healthy garden in the 0-30 foot defensible space surrounding your home. Plus, immediate actions you can take to maintain your landscape along the exit routes from your home to ensure safe exit during wildfire evacuation. Presented by UC Marin Master Gardener Kirby Wilcox. Marin Living with Fire Webinar Series (April 2021)

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Life Saving Landscaping

Thursday July 1, 2021

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Prioritizing Landscaping During Drought

Thursday July 1, 2021

Bonnie Morse (Bonnie Bee & Co), beekeeper and certified arborist, presents ways to make your landscape more fire resistant, and how that supports biodiversity, protecting valuable habitat for birds, animals and pollinators. Living with Fire in Marin County webinar series (March 2021)

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Save the bees AND save your home!

Thursday April 22, 2021

Bonnie Morse, of Bonnie Bee & Company, explains how Marin (and California) residents can maintain a fire-smart landscape around their home, while attracting and supporting bees and other pollinators in a biodiverse, healthy, natural environment.

Living in wildfire country requires extra care and maintenance in residential landscapes, but this doesn't need to happen at the exclusion of important plants and animals. Learn how to be fire-smart and pollinator friendly.

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Supporting biodiversity and pollinators in a fire-smart garden

Thursday May 28, 2020

The first in a new video series - short videos covering topics important to homeowners and residents in Marin's Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). This video introduces the concepts of "Fire-Smart" landscaping with UC Marin Master Gardeners from the UC Cooperative Extension and FIRESafe MARIN.

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How to create Fire-Smart Landscaping w/ UC Marin Master Gardeners

Wednesday May 6, 2020

Italian cypress is one of the most fire-hazardous vegetation species commonly found in landscaping vegetation. FIRESafe MARIN recommends the removal of Italian cypress whenever it is present within 100' feet of structures in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUIO

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Italian cypress burning in a wildfire

Tuesday April 30, 2019

Bamboo (most species) are grasses, and have been identified in general as fire-hazardous vegetation that should not be maintained in the Defensible Space zone around homes. This video shows bamboo burning intensely. The loud crackling sound are the individual culms "popping" as they become superheated by fire.

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Bamboo burning in a wildfire

Tuesday April 30, 2019

Wildfire embers are the leading cause of structure loss in wildfires. In this video, watch as wind blown embers ignite ornamental vegetation - juniper bushes - hundreds of feet from the main fire, eventually destroying homes that were never impacted by the "main" fire.

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Burning Juniper

Wednesday September 28, 2016

Spanish broom and French broom were introduced into California from Europe. They have become aggressive invaders threatening native plants and increasing fire hazards. Read more about the invasive shrub in the UC Green Blog: http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=10622

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Beautiful shrub is ecological problem in California

Thursday June 13, 2013

Defensible Space

Videos about defensible space and creating a fire-smart yard.

Fire Safe Marin interviews home inspectors Daniel Reese and Nick Rodriguez who describe common hazards found in Marin County homes.

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Home Evaluation Interview with Inspectors

Friday September 24, 2021

This is a short film following two Marin County Defensible Space Inspectors as they educate a resident on her home's wildfire risk. You can follow along and find out what a Ross Valley Fire Defensible Space Inspection feels like as well as picking up helpful information on home harding and fire smart landscaping.

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What To Expect during your Defensible Space Inspection

Wednesday June 30, 2021

Mark Brown, the executive officer at the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority and the resident of Skyhawk subdivision in Santa Rosa, which was affected by Glass Fire that started on September 27, 2020, led an educational tour of his neighborhood for the defensible space evaluators.

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Glass Fire Post Fire Analysis - For Inspectors

Friday June 18, 2021

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2020 Glass Fire Analysis

Friday June 18, 2021

In this presentation Todd Lando, Battalion Chief and Wildfire Hazard Mitigation Specialist, discusses defensible space, applicable fire codes and ordinances covering zones 0 - 4, and busts myths as it relates to creating defensible space. Living with Fire in Marin County webinar series (March 2021)

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Fire Chief Debunks Defensible Space Myth

Thursday April 22, 2021

Zone Zero is Ground Zero when protecting your home from embers. This is the first Defensible Space zone, 0' to 5' from structures, decks, or anything attached to your home. Watch this short video for an introduction to the concept of Zone Zero and how you can help protect your home's most vulnerable exterior space from wildfire embers.

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What is Defensible Space? Get to know your Zero Zone

Thursday May 28, 2020

Ready Your Community

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It Takes a Community: How to support individuals with access and functional needs

Monday September 13, 2021

In making a street assessment, FIRESafe MARIN's goal is to work together with neighbors to improve the community’s fire awareness and overall safety. This is a process that takes time and collaboration, and is a starting point for your multi-year fire mitigation work plan. Fire does not respect property lines and so we must work together.

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Street Assessment for Annual Firewise Walks

Thursday April 1, 2021

Introduction to Fire Adapted Communities. Community wildfire adaptation principles and how communities are working to build sustainable wildfire resilience capacity in fire-prone areas.

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What is a Fire Adapted Community?

Tuesday February 23, 2021

Wildfires are bigger, burn longer, cause more damage, and kill more people than ever before. This new reality requires greatly expanding prevention, preparedness, and fuel-reduction efforts throughout Marin. The Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority (MWPA) is a coalition of local fire agencies, emergency service providers, and cities, towns, and county government being formed to support the development and implementation of a comprehensive wildfire prevention and emergency preparedness initiative.

MWPA INITIATIVE
Key elements of this initiative include:
Improving emergency alert and warning systems to enhance early alert for organized evacuations
Expanding coordinated efforts to reduce combustible plants and vegetation
Improving evacuation routes and infrastructure to enhance traffic flow and promote safe evacuations
Expanding and enhancing defensible space and home evaluations and educating homeowners about how to reduce the vulnerability of their home and neighborhood to wildfire
Providing grants and support to seniors, persons with disabilities, and low-income homeowners who need assistance maintaining a defensible space, making homes fire resistant, reducing combustible vegetation, and preparing for emergencies
Creating and sustaining a coordinated local wildfire public safety and disaster preparedness program
Supporting residents to establish Firewise USA programs in neighborhoods through ongoing public education
BRINGING A LOCAL WILDFIRE PREVENTION INITIATIVE TO REALITY
Marin’s fire agencies, cities, towns, and county government are currently working to form the MWPA and develop a coordinated program for wildfire prevention.
To be successful, a stable source of locally-controlled funding dedicated to wildfire prevention and public safety is required.
A countywide parcel tax measure is under consideration for the March 2020 election to provide dedicated funding for the MWPA program.

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Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority

Tuesday September 17, 2019

Wildfire Science

City of San Rafael Emergency Manager Quinn Gardner demonstrates how wildfire embers are trapped in vegetation leading to ignition.

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Wildfire Science: How Fires Spread

Wednesday September 22, 2021

Yana Valachovic, a UC Coooperative Extension Forest Advisor, explains three different sources of fire ignitions: direct flames, radiant heat and most importantly - embers. Tending to combustible fuel sources around your home – like wood piles, mulch, plantings and lawn furniture – can protect your home from ignition. “Small actions matter!”

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Embers, Direct Flame & Radiant Heat

Sunday December 20, 2020

Marin County Deputy Chief Mark Brown discusses how human actions and a changing climate that have created an explosive fire environment in California.

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California is burning

Sunday December 20, 2020

Yana Valachovic, a UC Coooperative Extension Forest Advisor, describes the science behind wildfires including how fuel, weather and topography create the wildfire triangle.

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Can this science save your life?

Sunday December 20, 2020

http://www.xactware.com — Xactware is one of the founders of the Institute for Business & Home Safety's new state-of-the-art, multi-peril research center in Chester Country, N.C. At this facility, researchers simulate disaster conditions — including heavy winds, droplet-sized rain, realistic hailstones, and firebrand/ember generation — to test building materials and structure components. They record the tests on high-speed, high-definition cameras to analyze the results.

In this experiment, researchers recreated an ember storm to study how a typical home holds up in wildfire conditions. The U.S. Forest Service and the International Association of Fire Chiefs have verified that the ember storm simulation is a realistic demonstration of a typical wildfire event.

For more information about IBHS, check out http://www.disastersafety.org.

A full transcript of the video is provided below.

Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety
Ember Storm Demo
Wildfire test structure in the IBHS Research Center's large lab. The structure is designed to demonstrate vulnerabilities of a typical home.

Researchers load a combustible mix of pine bark mulch and wood dowels into the burn chamber of each ember generator.

Plants and landscaping material, such as mulch, are placed around the test house, as they would be in the real world, to demonstrate ignition potential.

The ember storm is created using five ember generators. Each generator has three stacks to deliver embers into the wind field. Embers are pushed through the stacks using large fans attached to the burn chambers.

The Research Center's large 105-fan array created winds of 10 to 20 miles per hour, which produced the ember shower attacking the house.

Vegetative debris (pine straw) ignites in gutters as a result of the ember attack. The vinyl gutter melts and falls, the aluminum gutter stays intact, and the dry grassy vegetation becomes fully involved in flames.

The asphalt shingle roof shown here is a Class A rated roof, which is the best type of roof in a wildfire prone area. Burning pine straw in the valley of the roof will not penetrate the roof allowing flames or sparks into the attic; this prevents internal ignition.

The untreated wood shake roof is vulnerable to spot fires. As embers burn through the roof, they can cause internal ignition, leading to the destruction of the home.

Dry vegetation has ignited in the indented corner; this fire then ignites the highly flammable wood lap siding. A vortex of fire is created in the corner by turbulent winds—an effect which often accompanies wildfire.

Two other types of wall siding are demonstrated here: the left side is fiber cement siding (this is only slightly damaged, despite significant exposure to fire, and the right side is vinyl siding, which is melted away.

This attic gable end vent has a 1/8-inch mesh screen, yet embers still penetrate and float into the attic, where they likely would catch on combustible material.

The fiberglass window screen allows some ember penetration. As the screen melts on flame contact, an opening is created which allows embers and flames to penetrate the home and catch on combustible material, such as curtains or carpeting.

The ember storm created in the IBHS Research Center has been validated by wildfire experts from the U.S. Forest Service and the International Association of Fire Chiefs as a realistic demonstration of a typical wildfire event.

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Wildfire Ember Highlights

Wednesday May 11, 2011

Interview with Jack Cohen, Fire Sciences Researcher, Fire Sciences Lab, Missoula, Mt.

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Radiant Heat Versus Firebrands(embers)

Thursday October 25, 2007

Vegetation Management in Open Space Lands

Vegetation Management in Marin's Open Space. This segment focuses on vegetation management tools, process, treatment, and fire safety. Presented by Mike Swezy, board member of the Marin Conservation League. December 2020

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Vegetation Management in Marin's Open Space: Tools, Process, Treatment

Monday January 11, 2021

Vegetation Management in Marin's Open Space: Planning for Projects presented by Max Korten, Marin County Parks & Open Space. December 2020

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Planning for Projects in Marin's Open Space

Monday January 11, 2021

Vegetation Management in Marin's Open Space: Mission of Land Managers presented by Mike Swezy, Marin Conservation League. December 2020

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Mission of Land Managers in Marin's Open Space

Monday January 11, 2021

Vegetation Management in Marin's Open Space: Long Term Maintenance presented by Max Korten, Marin County Parks & Open Space. December 2020, Living with Fire in Marin County webinar series.

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Long Term Maintenance in Marin's Open Space

Monday January 11, 2021