Planting Edmonds is a monthly column written by and for local gardeners.

Local Edmonds social media recently indicates that wildlife sightings are on the rise.

Maybe not lions and tigers, but yes, there could be bears, oh my! as well as coyotes and raccoons, to name the ones suburbanites in our fair city of Edmonds are most concerned about. We have been informed not to tempt critters by leaving pet food outside or food waste in unsecured bins.

In our yard we have found raccoons to be useful as pest control. One day we noticed hornets flying in and out of a small hole in the edge of our wooly thyme border. “Oh, dear,” I thought, “looks as if we’ll need a professional to deal with that so guests don’t get stung.”

The next day a bare dirt concavity had appeared where the stinging insects had been, and nary a one coming or going. I suspected raccoons may have dug out the larvae and hoped their little noses did not get badly stung.

This year while watering a patio pot, my spouse was chased by a similar wasp or hornet that stung the finger holding the hose. The next day, several chunks of the plant were scattered on the patio, taken from the precise spot where the marauding insect had exited. They are still there, but we are hoping our friendly four-legged neighborhood exterminator may finish them off.

Animals are not the only potential intruders. While many gardeners welcome wildlife into their gardens, there is one wild guest we may universally choose to keep out: fire, wildfire in particular.

When the news showed the Campfire of 2018 as a catastrophic horror that destroyed the entire town of Paradise, the images were rife with burned-out husks of automobiles and ash-covered chimneys standing at the edge of concrete foundations scattered with remnants of residences.

While the scope of the disaster was devastating and the lives and homes lost impacted an entire community with loss and displacement, I learned something remarkable about the disaster. At that time, my youngest brother had yet to retire from CalFire. He shared a link to a map app for residents of Paradise to use before they were allowed to retrieve belongings, salvage what they could, or in the case of some, find their homes standing, untouched.

I became entranced with exploring the symbols on this map, discovering that while some homes were obliterated, and others damaged, others appeared randomly distributed, untouched. No pattern was apparent. Homes next to destroyed structures had escaped damage. How and why did that happen?

I turned to Google map street views and cross-checked homes with those still intact prior to the conflagration. What I found became evidence of the difference landscaping can provide in protecting homes from fire.

You may be thinking, but this could never happen here in the rainy northwest. Think again. We have been warned repeatedly of the extreme drought conditions prevailing this summer. Red flag warnings have been issued. Fire can and does come too close.

Last Fourth of July, someone set off an (Illegal!) incendiary device on Walnut Street. It landed in an Arborvitae hedge in front of a home whose occupants were away. Fortunately, the fire department was alerted and arrived in time to prevent structural damage to more than the front deck of the home.

When walking around my neighborhood I have become aware of similar variables in home gardens here to those in the town of Paradise. Many homes follow the common pattern of a front lawn with “foundation plantings.” Some also have wood fences and wood-chip mulch adjacent to the wood siding.

We also have pockets of contiguous coniferous trees and many Arborvitae typically grown to form continuous hedges, and often in close proximity to eaves. (Note: I took these photos in another county to avoid pointing to any local homes.)

What many towns in fire-prone California have been experiencing for years may be worth paying attention to as Washington encounters drier and potentially more dire and disastrous fire seasons.

Creating a safe zone is advisable; at the same time, we also want to consider maintaining habitat for wildlife, pollinators, insectivore pest control, climate-conscious carbon sequestration and water- conserving aspects in our landscapes. How can we do it all?

It’s called “defensible space.”

In light of climate change, wildfire becoming more rampant and the post-fourth fire danger, now may be a good time to view landscaping decisions from new perspectives.

Is it possible to have a space that is defensible from fire but can still serve wildlife, while at the same time being attractive and easy to maintain?

The answer, as many Californians are discovering is a resounding, yes. However, it requires reimagining  our accustomed practices and standard designs. One practice prevalent in this area is to allow lawns to go dormant in summer. This saves on watering, but also creates a dry path for fire to spread.

If the lawn has been clipped close to the ground that does reduce the danger, but it only slows a fire that may be advancing with wind pushing it toward more flammable substances.

As I have examined our own yard, I have consulted the online sources. The most available to Washingtonians is: https://www.dnr.wa.gov/publications/rp_fire_defend_home_from_wildfire.pdf

That page shows how to prepare around your home. However, the most specific advice applies to homes built in or near a forest. While many Edmonds area homes are fortunate to have forest adjacent or nearby, there are also preparations we can make if we have scattered clusters of trees on lots near or adjacent to our own.

Few of us are gardening around homes that are 100 feet or more from adjacent homeowner’s properties, over which we have little control. If this is your situation, you may wish to contact neighbors to see if you can work together to reduce the danger of fire spreading from one property to another.

Even if your neighbors are unwilling to make significant changes, there is much you can do to prepare your own garden to protect your home better should fire flare up nearby. You could make the difference in how far and rapidly a fire spreads and how much damage results

The most common advice is also the easiest to follow: Clean your gutters. If, as in the picture above, you cannot access your gutters due to shrubs that have grown from foundation plantings to become small trees encroaching on your roof, it may be time for either pruning them back or removing them entirely.

One of the greatest fire hazards is the ubiquitous Arborvitae. One description I found online says it all; called “Full Speed a Hedge” it is described as, “the fastest way to grow your own privacy fence” and “can grow up to 2 feet a year.”

While its narrow shape fits in small spaces and it provides a dense green barrier year-round, that shape and growth pattern can prove doubly dangerous. Have you ever pruned or removed one such shrub from a row, or even stuck an arm into the interior?

Within that lush green exterior is an open space filled with brittle dead twigs and brown branches. The mature Arborvitae has an exterior facade of resinous (read flammable) foliage encasing a tower of kindling, not unlike the classic “teepee” campfire building shape and material.

Having arborvitae adjacent to the side of your house is like planting a torch in the ground, doused with gasoline ready for any ignition source to set it blazing, hot and fast.

If you want such a hedge, make doubly sure to locate it at least 15 feet or more from any woody material, mulch, fencing, other branches, etc.

A rule of thumb as you evaluate your site: Clear anything combustible from within 5 feet of your house, especially under overhanging eaves. Imagine a vagrant windblown spark lands in your garden. What could it ignite? Could that spark become a flame that could find sufficient fuel to get hot enough to set any wood on or in contact with your house ablaze?

More resources from California apply to Washington, too: readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/defensible-space. This resource breaks the area around homes into zones; the first, Zone 0, is the most critical. Clear any combustible material for a distance of 5 feet from your home. It doesn’t mean you need a yard as stark as this:

An attractive arrangement of non-combustible materials and fire-resistant plants, either well-watered or contained, can replace the outdated foundation plantings. At the same time, you can reduce the intrusion of undesirable bugs and rodents into your home, basement or crawl space and reduce the likelihood of dry rot when you have no shrubbery in contact with your dwelling.

The California website has a wealth of resources and suggestions. One involves creating air space in and between shrubs and trees so that sparks cannot get as much of a start. My brother once told me the advice someone gave him about pruning: “keep cutting until you can throw a cat through it.” While I do not recommend throwing cats, you get the idea. Read more at readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/fire-smart-landscaping.

If you apply proper pruning methods to train young trees from the start, including at planting, you will ensure healthy and fire-resistant growth.

The bottom line: The houses that remained standing in Paradise were the ones that had cleared space between the home and the surrounding pines. Those reduced to scorched foundations had thickets of young dense trees crowded close to each other and to structures.

The lesson from Paradise is a hard-earned one. Lives and property were lost in a few blinks of an eye. Don’t wait to apply these lessons here before it is too late.

–By Lora Hein

Lora Hein gardens in Edmonds. She earned her degree in environmental studies and biology at Sonoma State University and landed in Washington the following year as a backcountry ranger with the North Cascades National Park. After seven summer seasons with NOCA, for the next 30 years she cloned rhododendrons, designed passive solar homes, inspected air pollution control, taught elementary school, and became a UniServ field representative for public education employees, from which she recently retired.