How To Defend Your Own Home In A Wildfire

By GARY PINNELL | Highlands Today
Published: February 14, 2008

LAKE PLACID - As firefighters battled flames Monday and Tuesday, they kept talking about defensible space.

That's a minimum 30-foot no-vegetation zone around houses, barns, outbuildings and other possessions. Two hundred feet is more desirable.

Melissa Yunas, a wildfire mitigation specialist for the Florida Division of Forestry, is teaching a Firewise Communities course at 10 a.m. Monday at Bishop's Park boat ramp, on Lake June Road, one-half mile north of U.S. 27.

"We need to try to educate some people on they do need to know," said Charles Andrews, a Highlands County fire supervisor.
One more thing they need to know: stay away from the fires.

"There were a lot of - we call them Looky-Lous," Andrews said. "We have a job to do, to protect their lives and their property. They're just human and they like to see these things, but there were roads filled with cars. We couldn't get fire trucks down them. Please, stay out until we get it under control."

More info about Firewise: Melissa Yunas, (772) 219-1248, or Vick Reaney, Leisure Lakes Homeowners Association, 699-9588.