Create a fire-resistant garden for Portugal’s hot summers – Portugal Resident

We support the courageous bombeiros (firefighters) who keep us safe, and observe warnings and restrictions. But what else can we do to help reduce the risk of fire around our homes?

Prevention

Let’s begin with prevention measures, then move on to choices and strategies for plantings in the landscape.  

First, survey around the house. Remove dead vegetation. Check the roof and gutters and make sure they’re clear of debris. Reduce combustible material around the home, eliminating fire heaps.

Decorative pine bark mulch can be ignited by sparks during times of low humidity, conveying fire toward the home. Gravel or stone mulches will reduce fire spread.

If you have a supply of water such as a covered cistern or a swimming pool, our bombeiros have the legal right to use these to fight fires.

Survey your trees

Check all trees within 10 to 15 meters of the house. Prune any branches that touch other trees. Lift the crown: remove all contact with ground vegetation. But don’t remove native hardwoods as they offer fire resistance. See below for more specifics on trees.

Fire-resistant plant material

Use fire-resistant plant material in the landscape, such as succulents. These are a diverse group of plants that store water in their thick, fleshy stems, leaves and roots. Once established, they are low maintenance and require little watering. And they are beautiful, available in a rainbow of colours, forms and sizes.

There are the low-growing, lovely rosettes of echeverias, and a spectrum of aloes beyond the familiar aloe vera that produce stems of tubular orange flowers. Aeoniums survive on neglect, and the dark brownish-purple ones provide wonderful contrast with light greens.

Here are examples of the beauty of succulents in the landscape, from the Sherman Botanical Garden in Corona del Mar, California, which shares the same hardiness zone and mediterranean climate of the Algarve.

Create a fire-resistant space

Choose plants carefully to create a defensible, fire-resistant space around your home. Modify, reduce or remove potential fuel to form a barrier that slows wildfire as it approaches. This also gives firefighters the space they need to work safely.

Researcher and agronomist José Martino observed recently: “Without agricultural fields, grazing areas or patches of leafy vegetation … fire encounters few natural barriers to its progression.”

Is your home at the top of a slope? When it climbs a slope, fire preheats the vegetation situated in front of it, reducing the humidity of the fuels even before they are hit by the flames. Planting swaths of low-growing succulents provides a zone of protection, and can stop fire from progressing to buildings.

Here is an example of a fire stopped by succulents before reaching the home. Euphorbia tirucalli (ironically, the common name is “fire sticks” for its orange colour) and Aeonium arborescens in amass planting on a slope stopped a ground fire from progressing to the home.

Create islands of plants with space between, ideally mulched with stones, gravel and pebbles. These reduce combustible material around the house and are an important part of a drought-resistant garden.

Fire-resistant trees

Many trees are fire resistant. Here are some examples that are found throughout Portugal’s mediterranean landscape.

Mediterranean cypress: surprisingly fire resistant because their thick leaf cuticles retain high water levels.

Olive: their dense wood and waxy, moisture-rich leaves slow the spread of fire.

Carob (alfarroba): Drought-tolerant, evergreen legume with dense foliage and high moisture content, they serve as a fire break.

Cork oak: the insulating cork bark protects the combustible inner cambium of the tree.

Bay laurel: moisture-rich leaves and wood that does not ignite easily.

Fig: if you’ve ever picked figs off a tree, you know the corrosive latex that oozes from the branches when they’re cut — and this provides unique protection against fire.

A drought-resistant garden in a thoughtfully laid out landscape can offer peace of mind during fire season, as well as beauty year-round.

For a wealth of information about beautiful water-wise and drought-resistant gardening, visit the Mediterranean Gardening Association of Portugal at mgaportugal.org

Read more articles from Justine Strand de Oliveira on gardening: Surviving Summer: a beautiful mediterranean garden for heat and drought or Lovely lavender is in bloom!