If you live in the Inland Northwest, the honest answer is that most homes lost to wildfire aren’t overrun by a wall of flame. They’re ignited by wind-driven embers that land on the roof, drift into a vent, or catch a pile of bark mulch sitting against the foundation. That’s good news, because it means learning how to protect your home from wildfire is mostly a list of small, cheap, unglamorous jobs you can do yourself.

The fires around Spokane in early August 2026 made that painfully clear. Roughly 65,000 people were evacuated and more than 700 structures were lost in the first days of the Spokane Complex Fire, in neighborhoods plenty of people wouldn’t have called high risk. Here’s what works, in rough order of how much it buys you.

How to protect your home from wildfire: the short version

If you only get to a handful of things this season, do these five:

1. Clear everything that burns out of the first five feet around the house.
2. Clean needles and leaves off the roof and out of the gutters.
3. Screen every vent with 1/8 inch metal mesh.
4. Get the combustible clutter out from under and against your deck.
5. Break the fuel path where a wood fence meets the siding.

None of that needs a contractor and most of it costs you a weekend. The rest of this guide covers each one, plus the bigger upgrades worth planning for when you’re already replacing something.

Start with the first five feet

Fire researchers call the ground within five feet of your walls the immediate zone, and it’s the most important space on your property. It should be non-combustible: gravel, pavers, bare mineral soil, or low green plants you keep watered. The NFPA’s wildfire research is blunt about this being the place to start.

What needs to come out of that strip:

• Bark mulch and wood chips. They catch embers and smolder for hours before anyone notices.
• Firewood. Move the stack at least 30 feet out, and don’t tuck it under a deck or against a shed.
• Dead plants and dry grass. If it’s brown in August, it’s fuel.
• Plastic garbage cans, patio cushions, doormats, and propane tanks.
• Junipers and arborvitae planted tight to the wall. They’re some of the most flammable landscape plants we grow around here.

Then look under the deck and under the stairs. That’s where needles pile up and nobody checks.

Clean the roof and gutters twice a season

A gutter packed with pine needles is an ember trap sitting at the edge of your roof deck. So are the valleys where two roof planes meet, and the pocket behind a chimney. Clear them at the start of fire season and again mid-season, because one windy week refills everything.

While you’re up there, look for the gaps embers exploit: missing shingles, lifted flashing, an open ridge, or a hole at the eave where a bird got in. It doesn’t take much of an opening.

The roof covering does the heaviest lifting

If you’re replacing a roof anyway, a Class A rated assembly is the baseline in fire country. Metal, tile, and modern asphalt composition can all reach Class A, so it’s less about the material name and more about the tested assembly and how the edges get detailed.

Steel has one advantage worth naming plainly: it won’t ignite, so an ember shower on the surface has nothing to catch. The trim matters just as much. Open ridges and eaves need closures so embers can’t blow up underneath the panels. If you’re weighing your options, our comparison of metal roof vs asphalt shingles covers lifespan and cost, and the metal roofing panels guide walks through which profiles suit which roof.

Screen every vent

Attic, gable, crawlspace, and soffit vents are the most common way embers get inside a house that looks untouched from the street. Cover them with 1/8 inch metal mesh. Not plastic, not fiberglass, and not a screen so fine it clogs with dust and defeats the ventilation.

Don’t seal vents off permanently, since you need that airflow the other eleven months of the year. If you’re replacing them anyway, ember-resistant vents built for wildland urban interface use are a worthwhile upgrade.

Box in the eaves and look at your walls

Open eaves let heat and embers collect against exposed rafter tails and the underside of the roof deck. Enclosing them with a solid soffit takes that trap away, and steel soffit does it without adding fuel. Our guide to metal soffit and fascia covers how the pieces go together.

Siding matters less than your roof and vents, but it isn’t nothing, especially on the elevation facing a slope or a greenbelt. Steel, fiber cement, stucco, brick, and stone all hold up far better than wood or vinyl. Our breakdown of metal siding vs wood and fiber cement compares them on durability and cost too, not just fire.

Windows fail before walls do

Radiant heat from a burning fence, shed, or neighboring house can crack single-pane glass long before the wall itself is in trouble. Once the glass goes, embers are inside and you’ve lost the house. Dual-pane windows with at least one tempered pane hold up substantially better. If replacing all of them isn’t realistic, start with the elevations facing the heaviest vegetation.

Break the fuel path at the fence line

A wood fence running right into your siding is a wick. Fire finds the fence somewhere down the line and walks it straight to the house, which is how homes burn when the flame front never got near the yard.

There are two fixes. The cheap one: swap the last five feet of fence nearest the house for metal or masonry, or hang a metal gate there, so the fuel path is broken. The thorough one: go non-combustible for the whole run. Our steel fence panels are all-metal and Class A rated, so they don’t ignite or carry flame the way wood does. If you want the detail, we wrote a full piece on fireproof fencing and what fire resistance really means, and you can spec a fence yourself in our fence builder.

Then work outward, 5 to 100 feet

Past that first five feet, you’re managing fuel rather than eliminating it. The goal is to keep a fire on the ground and slow it down, not to clear-cut your lot.

• 5 to 30 feet: mow grass short, space tree crowns about 10 feet apart, limb up trees 6 to 10 feet off the ground, and pull out the ladder fuels (shrubs growing under trees) that carry ground fire up into the canopy.
• Nothing overhanging the roof. Cut back branches that reach over the house or within 10 feet of the chimney.
• 30 to 100 feet: thin where it’s dense, haul out downed limbs and dead brush, and keep the driveway clear enough for a fire engine to get in and turn around.

NFPA’s write-up on the home ignition zone is a good next read if you want the reasoning behind the distances.

Have a plan you can run in ten minutes

Hardening the house buys you options. A plan is what lets you use them.

• Sign up for your county’s emergency alerts. In Washington and Idaho, evacuation levels run 1 (get ready), 2 (be set), and 3 (go now).
• Know two ways out of your neighborhood, since one may be blocked or full.
• Keep a go bag with medications, documents, chargers, and pet carriers somewhere you can grab it in the dark.
• Back the car in so you’re facing out.
• Photograph or video every room now for insurance. It takes fifteen minutes and it’s the thing everyone wishes they’d done.

If you’re told to go at Level 3, go. Nothing on the list above is worth a delayed evacuation.

Common questions

Does a metal roof make my house fireproof?

No. Nothing does. Steel is non-combustible, meaning it won’t ignite or feed a fire, but a house is a system. A steel roof over a debris-packed gutter with unscreened vents can still lose. Non-combustible materials remove fuel, they don’t remove risk.

What’s the single highest-value thing I can do this weekend?

Clear the first five feet and clean your gutters and roof. It’s free, it takes a Saturday, and it addresses the way most homes actually catch: embers landing on or beside the structure.

Will any of this help with my insurance?

It might. Some carriers recognize specific mitigation work, and what counts varies by company and by state. Call your agent and ask which steps they credit before you spend money expecting a discount.

The bottom line

Protecting a house from wildfire isn’t one big purchase. It’s the first five feet, a clean roof, screened vents, and a fence that won’t carry flame to your siding, and then the bigger material upgrades when you’re already replacing something. Start with the free work this weekend and plan the rest.

If you’re rebuilding, re-roofing, or replacing a fence and you want to talk through non-combustible options, give us a call at 855-638-2587. We roll-form in Post Falls, Idaho with a second location in Spokane Valley, Washington, and we’re happy to walk you through what makes sense for your property without a sales pitch.