If you can glean anything from the charred ruins of hundreds of homes destroyed by the Los Alamos, NM fire-that-shouldn't-have-been, it should be a heightened awareness of the need for fire protection at home.

While you may think it's possible for a naturally occurring brush fire to spread and engulf your home, you likely don't expect a controlled burn to suddenly leave you homeless.

Unfortunately, the threat does exists, and so should your efforts to keep your home as fire safe as possible -- especially in hot, arid forest regions.

On May 4, to clear fire hazard brush with a controlled burn, the national park service started a fire in the Bandelier National Monument area outside of Los Alamos. Brisk winds quickly blew it out of control and into Los Alamos.

After some 20,000 nearby residents evacuated, the blaze scorched sections of the sprawling Los Alamos National Laboratory and destroyed at least 260 homes.

While even a steel-reinforced bunker isn't fire proof, building and fire officials say you can build a level of fire resistance into your home to protect it from a fiery fate -- at least long enough to escape or for firefighters to arrive.

The key is combining fire resistant materials with "fire wise" mitigation, design and construction techniques.

The materials you use should be manufactured to American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards and assembled following International Conference of Building Officials' (ICBO) building codes.

Consider making these components of your home more fire resistant -- if only when you are conducting home improvements.

Published: May 18, 2000

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A journalist for 35-years, Broderick Perkins parlayed an old-school daily newspaper career into a digital news service offering editorial content and consulting services. Perkins' San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group includes the flagship news site, DeadlineNews.Com, offering real estate, personal finance and consumer journalism, and a backshop, the Deadline Newsroom.