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Winter is a good time to prepare your home for wildfire

Snowy Paradise ridge
Butte County Fire Safe Council
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Snowy Paradise ridge

Many Chico residents live amidst a wildland-urban interface (WUI), or very close to one. As a result, they’ve become familiar with the destruction fire can cause.

WUI is the term for where human development starts bleeding into nature.

Dallas Koller, fire program manager with the Butte County Resource Conservation District, said landowners in the WUI are particularly susceptible to the kinds of catastrophic wildfires that destroy homes and claim lives. That’s because the houses are usually built close to vegetation.

But there are ways for those living in this area to lessen the risk to themselves and their land.

One of these is starting fires on their own.

What is a controlled burn?

Indigenous tribes in California have conducted burns throughout history. These burns carried cultural significance and also lessened the destruction of wildfires when they started.

“It does that just by reducing the amount of fuel available for fire on the ground,” Koller said.

But the practice was largely stopped when the lands of Native Americans were colonized. The banning of cultural burns has contributed to hazardous fuel loading over several centuries. That’s simply a build-up of flammable materials on the forest floor.

Taylor Nilsson, executive director of the Butte County Fire Safe Council, said this is part of what makes modern-day wildfires so fast spreading and dangerous.

“You couple that with the impacts of climate change, drier conditions, drought, as well as more severe wind events — like we're seeing down south — and you get a destructive combination in terms of wildfire,” Nilsson said.

To help residents conduct prescribed burns on their properties, the Butte Prescribed Burn Association started more than five years ago.

They have burnt around 280 acres in Butte County since 2021, with operations recently increasing. Koller said 200 of those acres were burnt in 2024 alone.

Indigenous leaders in Butte County have also been succeeding in bringing back the practice of cultural burning.

Brush piles prepared for the cultural burn in the City of Chico in over 150 years at Verbena Fields on March 2, 2022.
City of Chico - Public Works
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Brush piles prepared for the first cultural burn in the city of Chico in over 100 years at Verbena Fields on March 2, 2022.

In 2022, members of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe held their first cultural burn within Chico city limits in over a hundred years. A year later, they performed one directly on Chico State’s campus.

Koller said anyone’s land could likely benefit from a controlled burn.

“The hard part is knowing whether [the land] is ready for the fire,” he said.

Koller said the prescribed burn association can drive onto a property of any size and assess whether it’s a safe time for a prescribed burn.

He said performing a prescribed burn can be simpler than people think.

“Neighbors can help neighbors, and it doesn't have to be big. You don't have to be burning 10 or 100 acres,” Koller said. “If you can go out on a Saturday afternoon with your friends and burn a quarter acre or a half acre around your home, that's a big win.”

A prescribed burn in Butte County
Butte County Fire Safety Council
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Facebook
A prescribed burn in Butte County

Other tactics for keeping homes safe

Landowners can best protect their homes by being active land managers and combining several strategies together.

Nilsson said clearing the area around a home is another effective way to decrease risk. It’s called making a “defensible space.”

“When a wildfire does impact their community, or even just nearby, there's no place for embers to settle and then start a wildfire that catches their home on fire,” he said.

Creating a defensible space begins with removing vegetation that’s within five feet of the home. Then, other risks within 30 to 100 feet are addressed.

Nilsson said reducing these greater risks typically includes, “Limbing up trees, removing trees, limiting the amount of brush, and moving wood piles away from the home [by] at least 30 feet.”

There are also ways to make the home itself less susceptible to wildfire. This is referred to as “home hardening.”

“Replacing their vents with vents that automatically seal when they're impacted by heat to prevent embers from entering the home, and sealing their eaves, and so on,” Nilsson explained.

Preparedness information

Creating defensible space 
Home hardening 
What is needed in a go bag 
Make a plan for evacuation 
Be Ready, Butte! information 

Butte Fire Safe Council programs

Borrow a weed wrench program
Chipper program
Firewise USA®
Ready’s Happy Habitat
Youth education programs and resources

Anthony started his student internship with NSPR in October 2024. He is a freshman at Chico State University pursuing a Bachelor's degree in journalism.