{"id":33416,"date":"2020-09-30T17:24:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T17:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-swa-2019.pantheonsite.io\/?post_type=stories&p=33416"},"modified":"2021-04-06T17:53:10","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T17:53:10","slug":"landscapes-for-fire","status":"publish","type":"stories","link":"https:\/\/www.swagroup.com\/stories\/landscapes-for-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Forestalling Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1601499616638{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Forestalling Fire: Landscape Strategies Can
\nMitigate Impacts of Natural Disasters<\/h1>\n

As climate change gives rise to more frequent and intense natural disasters, planners and designers have an obligation to devise preventative measures.<\/h3>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”33639″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]For over 30 years, landscape architects at SWA Group have anticipated the possibility of fire and flooding in their designs and have implemented strategies that have saved lives and property. Beginning in 1988, Laguna Beach Managing Principal Sean O\u2019Malley<\/a> helped to develop aggressive field modification techniques while working on 20,000 acres of mixed-use development in Newport for the Irvine Company. The goal, then and now, was to use landscape to diminish the intensity and heat of fires so that firefighters can intervene in these fire-prone places.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Malley, whose studio was recently honored by the American Planning Association\u2019s California chapter with the Planning Firm of the Year<\/a> award, worked closely with the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA), who burned native chaparral to see how they reacted. The OCFA recommended replacing the fast-burning plants such as buckwheat and artemisia, (a.k.a. sagebrush) with native plants containing a high-turgidity index (how much water they hold); beavertail cactus and lemonade berry were selected because they can resist fire better. The team also eliminated plants with lots of flammable resin. And, at areas directly adjacent to housing development, they employed grasses which lower the heat intensity of a fire and slow its burn time. Fuel Modification Zones were developed that incorporated broad areas of thinned native chaparral and \u201cwet\u201d zones directly adjacent to development\u2014automatically irrigated zones of low grasses and highly turgid native plants.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1601497017257{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column]\n

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