If a fire races toward a cluster of homes in this rural community on a ridge overlooking the Pacific, this is what it will confront: a 50-foot-wide swath of cleared undergrowth that will rob the approaching flames of fuel.
Alarmed by California’s growing number of lethal conflagrations, residents here are building a network of roughly 25 miles of “fuel breaks” along Bonny Doon’s scenic winding roads, fields and forests.
Think of it as the traditional concept of “defensible space” — writ large. Just as pruning shrubs can help protect a single house, creating fuel breaks in the wildlands can aid entire neighborhoods.