Even the best fire mitigation plan doesn’t prevent all fires. After that, you need to go through everything that was lost in the fire. The inventory process is something you should do to prepare for a fire at the same time as fire mitigation processes. The Surprising Cost of Replacing Everything When you look around your home, you won’t think about the financial loss of a fire. Then you start to realize just how much everything adds up. Just think about how your TV costs hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars, and look at the $5,000 that you could easily spend on houseplants. Something that you may overlook at the tools that you use for fire mitigation in the first
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Pets are an important part of our families. We tend to treat them as our own children, and we want to make sure they’re safe in an emergency. You need a pet evacuation plan for you, your family, and any sitters to follow. There are times that you’ll be out of town. Maybe you have a sitter coming to check on your pets. Make sure they know what to do in an emergency. If you don’t have a sitter, make sure your neighbors know that pets are in the house and need to be removed. The problem is that people will panic in emergency situations. Things get left behind, or people put their own lives at risk to get their
You’re not always going to be home when an emergency strikes. You may be away for business or on vacation. Either way, there’s nothing you can do to get the items out of your house. Now what? Some communities are setting up Neighborhood Pods. They are a great option to make sure a small selection of houses are protected. What Is a Neighborhood Pod? A Neighborhood Pod is a little like a Neighborhood Watch. The collection is just smaller. You want a group of four to six adjacent houses, so you’re looking at neighbors either side of you and just across the street. You will all collect together to make sure other houses in the neighborhood are protected and the
Your livestock may be a way to make a living, but the animals also become part of your family. You need to ensure they are safe in the middle of an emergency. It is worth working with neighboring farms to ensure that all animals are safe. You’ll also want to make sure emergency services know that you have livestock, what you have, etc. This helps if you are away at the time of the emergency or if you are struggling to get everyone out. Get Ready for the Emergency You don’t know when some emergencies are going to happen. It’s always worth having a trailer ready to get your animals out should it happen. You need that trailer to be
If your home insurance company requires you to do fire mitigation on your property in Colorado, give us a call at (719)400-9104. Your home is your biggest asset, and yet a lot of people will skip over insuring it. Even when people get insurance, they assume everything is covered. However, there is a lot of fine print, and you need to make sure it’s all covered. It doesn’t matter if you rent or own. Don’t Assume Items or Types of Disasters Are Covered You would think that specific items in your home are covered if they’re damaged. You would think that wildfires are a covered occurrence to your home. The problem is that just because it makes sense that something
After you’ve been evacuated, you need to head to the first evacuation center that you find. This is set up ready for those who need a temporary place to stay. You may not end up staying there overnight, and they may send you on elsewhere, but they can take your contact information so they have confirmation that you and your family are safe. This is where you also share if you had to leave animals behind. The staff can get in touch with first responders to see if they can get the animals out. If you let livestock loose, also let them know even if you reported it elsewhere. What About the Cost of the Evacuation? Your home insurance will
It doesn’t matter how much you prepare. There is a huge rush of adrenaline when an emergency happens. Mental clarity is not something that is always there. One of the best things you can do is to have an evacuation list ahead of time. This isn’t just about what you should take with you. You also need to have a list of what specific people will take. And you need to practice the plan regularly. If you are out of town, you’ll want to make sure house sitters or pet sitters are aware of the evacuation list. This will help them should something happen to make sure they don’t leave anything important behind. Breaking Down the Evacuation List You need
Call Colorado Mastication at (719)400-9104 for fire mitigation estimate for your community. We are equipped to handle small and large projects While you can do what you need to do to protect your home from wildfires, you need your neighbors to do the same. This is why community projects are so beneficial. They get everyone in the same area working toward the same goal. Firewise National Program There are a few programs out there, with Firewise being one of the most popular and effective. This program is administrated by the National Fire Protection Association, and it encourages a whole neighborhood to work on mitigating fire risks in the whole area. There is a three-step process for communities to follow. Three
Approaching fires lead to emotional stress, and this ends up greater due to a lack of communication. You need to know what’s going on and where you need to go. This is why a communication plan is essential. Make Sure You’re on the List Over the last few years, the Reverse 911 system not working effectively has been linked to numerous deaths during wildfires. In Colorado alone, the success rate is only around 50%! The circuits are overloaded during major disasters, because people are calling their own loved ones. It makes it harder for the official channels to get through. This is why it’s so important not to rely on one communication method. There are usually other options, but residents
As you prune and cut down trees for fire mitigation, you end up with a lot of slash to deal with. You need to get rid of this slash, otherwise it becomes fuel for fire78s to spread. In fact, you could increase the risk of a fire spreading faster than just leaving the branches on the trees! Fires spread by burning up fuel on the forest floor first. Hauling the Slash There are a few ways to deal with slash, and the first is hauling. You will pick up the debris and get rid of it, usually in a small pickup truck. Many counties will even have free collection sites that you can take it to, although some are only