As Spokane watched its northwest go up in wildfire flames, Jim Walsh, head of the Washington state Republican Party, posted a message from a frustrated local resident who argued progressive policies had contributed to the severity of the blaze.
“The City of Spokane was put under summer water restrictions on June 1, [then] went to level 2, limiting water to 2 days a week, on July 24,” the man wrote. “Not great timing since embers on dry lawns, fields and wooded areas start more spot fires.”
The argument proposed a sickeningly ironic framing: city takes measures to save water, dooms neighborhoods to fire.
There are two problems with that theory: First, limiting lawn watering to two days a week doesn’t necessarily result in dry lawns. In fact, lawncare experts argue watering daily is one of the worst things you can do for your lawn.
“Many people assume that because it’s hot, the lawn needs water every day,” writes Eric DeBoer, assistant professor of Turfgrass Management at Louisiana State University. “However, shallow watering encourages short, weak root systems and creates constantly wet conditions that favor disease development and weed seed germination.”
Instead, he writes, the best practice for a healthy lawn is “deep and infrequent watering,” two to three times a week.
Second, when we reached out to Spokane Fire Department spokesperson Justin De Ruyter, he said dry lawns weren’t driving with the spread of the fire.
“That wasn’t really a factor,” De Ruyter said. “Lawns, if they’re mowed down and managed, it’s not really a problem.”
Even a very dry mowed lawn, he said, will “just kinda smolder.”
But, he said, there is a landscaping choice that makes a house dramatically more vulnerable to fire risks: arborvitae.
Arborvitae are bushes that can rapidly grow as big as a tree. They’re popular landscaping choices for a number of reasons: They’re easy to care for. They grow very quickly and easily. They’re bushy enough to make a decent privacy screen. You can easily trim them into hedges.
But they dry out very quickly during drought conditions. Their needles are oily, and the plant tends to accumulate dry material in the center. Washington State University refers to them as “plant torches.”
“It’s like a can of gasoline,” De Ruyter said. “They put out a shit ton of embers.”
Worse, a lot of people like to grow their arborvitae right smack up against the side of their houses, almost ensuring that a plant fire becomes a house fire.
“It’s kind of like a campfire during the July 4th weekend, but it’s your house,” the Spokane Valley Fire Department Fire Commissioner Rick Freier said during a demonstration posted to YouTube in 2020. “And that’s not a good thing, right?”
Wildfire experts recommend creating “defensible space” around your house, a no-plant’s-land free from foliage or debris. This not only reduces the risk that an errant ember will spread the fire to your house; it makes it easier for firefighters or emergency personnel to access.
WSU recommends planting alternatives to arborvitae, like a Japanese barberry, an Oregon boxwood, a cherry laurel or a nice azalea.
Of course, during a fire like last week’s, many people who’ve done absolutely everything right have lost their homes, too. It’s in moments like these, city communications director Erin Hut argued in an email to RANGE, that water conservation measures like the sprinkler restrictions are crucial.
“The City’s Water Department has been able to maintain water within fire response levels in its tanks and reservoirs and throughout the system, even in the most impacted areas within the wildfire’s path,” Hut wrote in an email. “Every little bit of system efficiency has made this possible.”
Regulation or not, it’s not like the city is shy about using sprinklers: As the Inlander reported last month, the city of Spokane ranks higher in average residential water use than 98 percent of the country.
