30,000 flee fire in Santa Barbara, California.

Last week the nation watched on nightly news channels as Santa Barbara, California suffered through another terrible fire.

Last week I started a series on rain water collection (harvesting), one of the uses I mentioned was storage for fire protection.

The fire damaged 47 properties and over 30,000 had to flee their homes. In 1990 in a similar size fire over 500 homes were damaged, firefighters credited several preventative measures that helped diminish damage.

One measure was a raised awareness for clearing older brush from around homes and properties, and an increase in fire-resistant gardens or just clearing vegetation from around their homes.

There are however some property owners that want the seclusion and privacy that a hillside of vegetation offers.

Rain water collection or rain harvesting offers an easy and economical way to protect home and property. Utilizing collected rainwater as a source for rooftop sprinkler systems and landscape water saturation makes perfect sense.

My article, "Water, Water, Everywhere but." continues next month with several fire protection system ideas.

Brett