This last winter, California again suffered devastating wildfires with extensive loss of property and even loss of several lives. Like everyone here, we wished that there was something that we could do to help.
Recently we were contacted by one of our customers who has solar panels on his roof and a Heliotex Automatic Solar Panel Cleaning System on those panels. As he has our system, he is already spraying water on his roof. The customer lives across the street from a vacant hillside which is covered in brush.
Our customer asked us if we had any ideas about setting up a system to spray water onto his house. The hope would be to mitigate approaching fires if possible.
After spending some time, we came up with a plan to attach our spray nozzles to the eave area of the customer’s house. When activated, the system will spray water on all four sides of the house.
The fury of some of the California wildfires is truly amazing. Coupled with high winds the created quite an inferno. Many of the victims had taken few if any steps to try to mitigate the danger from wildfire, such as cleaning brush away from their houses, cutting down large trees and utilizing landscape designs to reduce the amount of fuel for a fire, near their homes.
As with many problems, there is no one step cure. Certainly, we are not fire experts. However, in reading literature from Fire experts one finds that there are a lot of steps that can be taken to try to reduce your fire vulnerability. Among these are:
- Maintain Defensible Space (0–5 feet) Use noncombustible materials such as gravel, brick, or concrete in this critical area adjacent to your home.
- Reduce Siding Risks. …
- Clean Debris from Roof. …
- Use a Class A Roof Covering. …
- Clean Out Gutters Regularly. …
- Reduce Fence Risks. …
- Keep Embers out of Eaves and Vents. …
- Protect Windows.
- Reduce deck risks.
Again, these are just some of the steps one should take to reduce your vulnerability to wildfires. While we hope that the addition of our “house watering system” will be an additional tool in helping our customer reduce his fire risk, we will only know if his house is subjected to a wildfire event. We hope this never happens but hope our system will provide another “tool” to assist with reducing wildfire vulnerability.
If you are interested in getting more information about the “house watering system,” please call us at 760-837-0390.