The City of Paso Robles hosted on Wednesday its first of two events this month aimed at educating the community as wildfire season approaches.
Residents were given the opportunity to interact with local firefighters and community emergency response team (CERT) members to learn wildfire preparedness best practices, such as how to protect their homes, properties and families.
The FireWise Wildfire Preparedness Block Party ran from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 10th Street and Olive Street was part of the city's wildfire preparedness week.
KSBY spoke with Paso Robles' Fire and Emergency Services fire captain, John Prickett, who emphasized the importance of "home hardening" and the use of defensible space, particularly for residents on the west side of Paso Robles, as KSBY News reporter Lindsie Hiatt previously reported.
"We focus on what kind of threats that we have and personalize it for our community," Prickett said. "These are universal techniques — home hardening and defensible space are the big, big to-dos that you can do as a homeowner that will really help you in a chance of survival of the house and yourself if there ever is a fire in your community."
Prickett said home hardening includes decreasing the number of combustibles near structures and using less combustible construction materials, among other tactics. Prickett also mentioned keeping combustible vegetation five feet from structures and checking roofs and gutters for dead vegetation.
In terms of defensible space, fire officials say to have three zones of up to 100 feet of space and to focus on maintaining "ladder fuels."
"We don't want the grass fires to get to the brush that gets to the tree," he said of ladder fuels. "... We don't want the big vegetation and the trees and the brush to catch fire, because that's where you get most of your embers."
Prickett said embers can fly from half a mile to a mile away.
The next FireWise Wildfire Preparedness Block Party is on May 22 and will be held on 17th Street and Olive Street.
