Fire Prevention at Remote Properties (or any others)

Rural property owners generally pay lower taxes than city people for the logical reason that they derive fewer municipal services. That's a fair trade, isn't it? Among services NOT available to many on-road, (and certainly not for off-road) properties is subsidized fire protection. This has implications not only for structural preservation but also for insurance. Be sure to inquire about both before you buy or rent that attractive remote property! Then, plan to take charge of your own fire safety.

To help, most counties, boroughs, and parishes in the country have a Division of Emergency Services with useful information pertinent to hazards in that particular region. Some of the following suggestions are derived from the “Wildfire Mitigation Program” of my borough in Alaska. In addition, local fire departments are terrific resources. A local volunteer fireman actually helped construct some of our early buildings and alerted us to many of the elements described below. A few years later, in exchange for a hot meal, my husband flew a local fire chief out to assess the success of our fire mitigation efforts and any neglected hazards. He even helped us chop down a huge dry and dying tree!  A great resource is Firewise.

Whether your property has existing buildings or you will build from scratch, plan to assess fire hazards and find ways to reduce them through prudent use of: (a) firebreaks and landscaping, b) hardscape, (c) flammable debris removal or storage, (d) well marked and accessible roads and driveways (if on the road system), (e) well positioned fire suppression systems (f) primary and secondary methods to report the emergency, and, finally (g) exit plans and provisions.

Examples of each below:

a) Firebreaks and Landscape: The recommended width of a fire break is at least 30 feet around buildings.  (This is referred to as "defensible space zone 1") (However, since fire rises, buildings on a steep slope need to triple that distance below the structures).  I have first hand knowledge of the reason. This summer, the area of Willow, Alaska suffered a wildfire of several thousand acres. Scores of buildings and vehicles were damaged. About 2,000 people were evacuated. As we fly low over that area on a regular basis, and then drive among its roads, we see clear evidence where the fire had “jumped” narrow roads and driveways but had not crossed broad cul de sacs, parking lots, or grass air strips. The clearing around your buildings does not have to be paved or graveled – it can have landscaping - but those plantings should be intelligently selected and well maintained.

Telecommute from a Remote Property (Problems and Solutions)

For many years, my husband and I enjoyed working from home and traveling for business, so our far flung clients rarely knew where we were. They reached us by cell phone or email, and we met them occasionally during the year. So when we decided to move full time from our high-rise condo to our off-road, off-grid log cabin in the middle of the Alaskan forest, our professional life was, surprisingly, the least significant (of many!) adjustment we had to make.

Telecommuting at its finest

True, we had to build the infrastructure to power Internet and telephony by solar and wind power. And true, too, the communications service is less robust and, occasionally, less reliable. But Bryan still smiles and dials financial folks in investment banking and I still write business documents and provide compliance services for the securities industry. But the trade off is worth while: those early evening hours we used to waste commuting across town to networking meetings filled with service providers and job seekers are now allocated to a kayaking happy hour on a lovely lake surrounded by mountains. What a wonderful trade.

The message I'd like to convey in this article is: Why live where you need to work instead of working where you want to live? For many professions, telecommuting from home is an increasingly viable option, so telecommuting from where you want that home to be, is, too.

Build a Private Airstrip Or Land on One? Think Twice

Let's hypothesize that some Sourdough wants to build a grass airstrip on his property so that his Cheechako buddies can visit. Below are mistakes the former might make that the latter might encounter – to his peril. The list should give prudent pilots plenty of food for thought before they land on any private airstrip... or build one.

A visiting flyer could encounter problems if the airstrip is:

• Adequate for the owner's one seater with a STOL kit and tundra tires who is familiar with the quirky bumps and holes, but problematic for other pilots and other planes. (for example, a short, narrow strip with animal holes at the end).
• Built on soft or clay soil with no underlayment and no camber for drainage, soupy in rain, rutted after a prior friend landed or a moose walked through, uneven shifting due to permafrost and ice heave.
• Studded with rocks that are loosened by each visitor, pitting propellers and low winged aircraft.
• Too short for visiting airplanes, or long enough to land but too short for visitor take offs when temperatures or humidity rise (leaving Cheechako Charlie a stranded, and possibly unwelcome, visitor until the weather changes).
• In many parts of the country, and CERTAINLY in Alaska,  the runway will be wet, slushy, and icy  many times of year.  As any car driver in similar situations can imagine, the rule of thumb for safe landings in these conditions is to multiply one's "normal" landing distance by 1.4 when wet, by 1.7 for snow, by 2.3 for standing water/slush and by a whopping 3.5-4.5 for ice.  PLUS a 15% margin of error.  So, for example, a Cessna 182 and 206 generally can land in 1400 feet.  However, ski planes have NO BRAKES unless one adds them (a $2000 extra).  A safe ski plane pilot  would avoid an icy strip of less than 5600 feet,  especially if there are trees, roads, or homes at the far end of the luge lane, or if the strip angles downward.  The past two warm winters here made strips perilously icy.  Pilots avoided our neighbor's strip in the woods all winter long.  They stuck to the much larger (if still icy) lake.        
•  Wide enough for the owner's plane or experienced pilots but too narrow for occasional pilots or in cross winds.
• Contains a tricky curve, laterally or vertically!
• Built steeper than the recommended 2% grade lengthwise or greater than the 2.5 % camber widthwise, or it angles down instead of up for landings, or the lay of the land changes over time and is not regraded by the owner.  Oriented downward, a 1% grade can increase a pilot's needed landing distance by 10%.  3% grade = 30%!  And who can see that from the air? 
• Obstructed on the ends, sides, or even middle of the strip – a downed tree, a piece of machinery, animals, trash, a windblown plastic chair.
• Oriented toward the prevailing wind in some seasons but not others. Positioned where mountains throw up quirky weather.  Positioned where landings speed up because of common tailwinds. 
• Infrequently maintained if the owner is not a frequent flyer. For example, the grass could be high enough to obscure obstructions, ruts or animals except right before the owner/pilot plans to fly.  Wet grass contributes to hydroplaning, while dry grass can "grab" on landing. (Where we live, the wild grasses grow one foot per week to eight feet and then flop over everything nearby).
• A windsock at ground level surrounded by trees/buildings will not offer much useful information, and it may be contrary to conditions above trees ... where you need it.
• Finally, most airplane insurance does not cover landings on private residential strips. Those visits are strictly “at your own risk,”  understandably!  The factors that most grossly exaggerate the length required for a safe landing are strips that are slippery (from ice, snow, water), where landings are graded downhill with a tailwind.   

The owner of the airstrip may encounter problems he didn't contemplate, either.

Flies in My Outhouse - Chickens to the Rescue

Most women I meet have a spontaneous “ugh” reaction when they learn that we rely on an outhouse at our off-grid home. Then they are silent. Maybe they can't imagine it. Or maybe they picture a disgusting porta-potty at an overcrowded public venue. So, as a public service to polite, silent, curious people, here is a ”tell all” about what it is really like living with an outhouse.

Perma-potty

The hole beneath is 4 x 5 x 6 ft: plenty large for the two of us for a decade or more! Every once in a while we toss some lime down there, but let's face it; an outhouse is a low maintenance space.  Above ground, I asked for a large space because I am scared of spiders, and so I wanted lots of elbow room. Thus, our outhouse is 4 x 8 inside, which, if you think about it, is about the size of powder rooms in many homes. For ventilation and light, it has two screened windows and screened soffits under the high, steep eaves. We also added one of those whirly-gig things you see on the roofs of many houses to release the rising heat in attics. In our case, this one punctures the hole beneath the structure and carries away any methane. Thus, there is no more disagreeable smell in our outhouse than when one is alone in a powder room.

There are other inconveniences, no doubt. It is outside and unheated, and in Alaska! So, in the corner of our bedroom, we have a “chamber pot” like your ancestors did. For us, it is a white 5 gallon bucket, on top of which sits a camper's plastic toilet seat with a round aperture for just such an application, topped by the bucket lid. The arrangement is about the same height as a regular indoor toilet, so it is easy enough for a sleepy person in the middle of the night, except for the privacy issue, which took me  some getting used to. Every morning, I dump the bucket in the outhouse and rinse it at an outdoor spigot. About once or twice a week I swish it out with vinegar.

Free Ranging Ducks and Chickens - Hide and Seek with Eggs

Geo-caching is a high-tech version of hide and seek, complete with GPS and computer resources.  Our decidedly low-tech version is finding where our free-range ducks hide their eggs every morning.

Waddling home, always single file

During the winter, Mrs and Daylate, our harlequin females, lay their eggs in the nesting boxes of the coop they share with our Rhode Island Red chickens. But as soon as the snow recedes around the roots of trees, they explore options for future nests – waddling under overturned root balls and digging their bills into rotted trees and surrounding earth to assess softness. When the top several inches of a desirable location has warmed up, we no longer find eggs in the coop and start our morning game.