Making your home FireSmart does not require removing every tree around it.
In fact, such an approach in Salmon Arm, where there is a tree bylaw, may not sit well with the city. Instead, a good start would be arranging with the Salmon Arm Fire Department to have a free FireSmart assessment done on your property.
"There are trees allowed within the FireSmart model," said Salmon Arm firefighter Tyler Stevenson, who looks after public education and training.
With trees, the FireSmart Landscaping Guide advises looking after ladder fuels, which includes pruning all lower tree branches two metres from the ground. Plant trees and shrubs should be away from buildings to ensure branches do not touch or hang over roofs. Also, said Stevenson, trees on a property should be three metres apart, measured from the outskirts of their branches.
Stevenson has seen a growing interest in FireSmart landscaping in Salmon Arm since the destructive 2023 wildfire in the North Shuswap. However, he said FireSmart assessments tend to get homeowners thinking not about drastic measures, such as removing trees around the property, but about things that can be done along the outside walls of the structure.
"What I find when I go to most houses is they want to focus on the outskirts of their property, not recognizing that right up against the house is where we really need to start our focus 鈥� cleaning the gutters out, all the little alcoves where the leaves build up, cleaning up the wood debris piles that are stacked up against the house where you get firewood from, all those things 鈥� getting those flammable products away from the home.
"It鈥檚 not the forest fire that tends to take structures inside a community, especially a community like Salmon Arm, it鈥檚 usually the ember storm that comes ahead of those fires. Those are the ignitions that FireSmart is essentially trying to prevent."
A key FireSmart goal is to keep combustible materials 鈥� from cedar hedges to cedar much 鈥� out of the "immediate zone," a 1.5 metre (five foot) buffer area around the home/structure's periphery.
Stevenson noted the offers plenty of options to keep your home's immediate zone, and the overall landscape, green. However, if you'd prefer to learn more about those options from a person, Stevenson said there are two plant/gardening stores in Salmon Arm that are part of what's called the FireSmart Plant Program. They include and Farms.
"We basically bring in what is in the FireSmart book 鈥� we ordered all of our perennials based on FireSmart," said Myra Graham of Meadow Brae's garden centre. "Our criteria is FireSmart, native and as drought resistant or as drought tolerant as possible. Obviously there are some exceptions in those categories and some cross-overs鈥�"
Myra and daughter Heather Graham own and operate Meadow Brae.
"She is the landscape architect and horticulturist and I鈥檓 the gardener and mother," said Myra. "I bring a little bit of experience into the business along with the love of doing it."
Along with a wealth of FireSmart friendly gardening/landscaping advice, the mother/daughter duo share the view that "clear-cutting" around the house is not the best approach.
"What we鈥檙e working on is the complete opposite of that kind of idea, it鈥檚 working with plants and with nature instead of against鈥�," said Heather. "One thing we鈥檙e trying to say is that it doesn鈥檛 take away the beauty of your garden, it doesn鈥檛 take away the joy, it鈥檚 just about changing your focus, your selection of plants."
Some FireSmart landscaping suggestions from Meadow Brae: transition from bark mulch to living mulch, with ground cover plants such as snow-in-summer or creeping thyme.
"Low creeping plants that fill that space and quash the weeds, that kind of has the same effect as the mulch but doesn't have the same ignition point," said Heather.
Myra noted drought-tolerant plants still require initial watering, stressing they only become drought tolerant once they're established.
"Once you plant them, that doesn鈥檛 mean they鈥檙e water tolerant and we don鈥檛 need to water them," said Myra. "They do need to establish and the way people water things helps with that. You want to encourage the roots to go deeper, so watering them every day is really counterproductive. You want to almost stress the plant a little bit before you start watering again 鈥� not quite, there鈥檚 a fine line between that. But you do want them to search for deeper water and then when you do water, you want to water really thoroughly."
Like Stevenson, Heather and Myra have seen a growing interest in growing FireSmart, and the two strongly recommend having an assessment done.
"I think the biggest message that I鈥檇 like people to have is do an assessment 鈥� don鈥檛 be afraid of it," said Myra, noting an assessment was done on their farm property. "It鈥檚 actually a relief. I was one of those people that was afraid 鈥� we have 150-year old cedar trees and coniferous trees around here and I thought they're going ot tell me to cut all of that down immediately and that鈥檚 not the case."
Heather said they've put in about 100 hours of FireSmart work in at the farm, adding it's not something that is expected to happen overnight.
"It鈥檚 something where you can nip away at the more important aspects," said Heather. "It鈥檚 important to have these things done. maybe not annually, maybe bi-annually, just to make sure that you are going in the right direction. Most people come in and think, 'oh, he鈥檚 going to tell me about this tree,' but it鈥檚 actually the pile of wood you have next to your house that鈥檚 the problem."
On Saturday, May 25, Meadow Brae Farms, at 1630 51st Street NE, is hosting a FireSmart information day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The session will include guest speakers from the Salmon Arm Fire Department and landscaping program who will answer questions and provide "relevant information and help all of us to get through the fire seasons safely every summer."
For more FireSmart information, visit
