Fire precautions pay off for Bellevue homeowners
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
Blaine County residents who live near forests or wild sage land would do well to learn from an example set by a Bellevue-area couple on Monday.
As a wildfire bore down on a modern-looking one-story house owned by Roger and Marie Stewart Lato, a combination of wind, fire retardant and around-the-home fire precautions diverted the flames.
?It?s just really simple things you can do when your house is up against BLM land,? said Roger Lato. ?It?s just something we knew would happen after living here for 20 years. It?s inevitable. I?m surprised there haven?t been more close calls.?
Lato, a local builder, said his yard includes enough space for fire trucks to drive. A green belt of drought-tolerant grasses surrounds the home. Debris that could catch flying embers is not stacked against the house.
And the house itself is has a metal roof and stucco walls.
?There?s no way those materials are going to catch on fire,? Lato said.
Fire fighters noticed the precautionary measures.
?The metal roofs are critically important,? said Wood River Fire and Rescue Assistant Fire Chief Jeff Nevins. ?Stucco siding is good. Just the fact that they had an awareness of that is fantastic from our perspective.?
Just last week, U.S. Forest Service officials gave a presentation that included information about preparing ?defensible space? around homes. The segment on what homeowners can do to inhibit a forest fire from leaping onto their homes was part of a larger presentation on forest thinning the agency plans to undertake in Warm Springs canyon, where about 130 homes are nestled in an aging and fire-prone forest.
The Forest Service?s work, which will include forest thinning, will only be as good as homeowners? efforts to create defensible space around their houses.
Ketchum Ranger District Fire Management Officer Bill Murphy encouraged homeowners in the canyon to look critically at their properties.
?This project is only as good as the homeowner?s effort to control their own property,? he said.
