Firefighters, Sheriff's deputies and police officers are trained to deal with emergencies and are expected to accept a much higher level of risk in so doing. They are not expected to risk their own lives, however, especially if imminent threat to life is not involved--which is to say that no one is expected to risk their lives in defense of property.

If you expect the professionals to defend your home against a wildfire, you owe it to them to give them something to work with. It means first that brush clearance will have been done to the satisfaction of the inspectors who make the rounds every May and June. It also means that a 30-foot defensible space-actually it might better be called a working space-will have been cleared all around the house. This 30-foot space is based on experience--it is not arbitrary.

Figure 17 (in the "Evacuating" booklet) shows the increase in survivability of structures with the distance between the structure and vegetation. It shows that a structure with a 30-foot space is eight times more likely to survive than one that has no space between its walls and flammable vegetation. This is based on studies following actual fires, and holds even if no other action to defend the structures is taken.

The difference between the situation depicted in Figure10 (in the "Evacuating" booklet) as compared to Figure 17 (in the "Evacuating" booklet) is attributable to differences in the fires studied, the times of the fires, firefighting resources available and the extent to which homeowners were available to defend their homes. Your comparison is a cautionary exercise.

If you leave early, leave your home in as firesafe a condition as possible. Beyond the brush being cleared, this means attention to vents, heat traps, all windows and doors closed but not locked, etc. At least your home will not present an unnecessary danger to your neighbors and it would be available as a shelter for firefighters if needed.