Scott Garrett got the evacuation order at 6 a.m. on Oct. 22. His Lake Arrowhead home lay in the path of the Grass Valley fire, and flames would arrive within hours.
Garrett rushed to his garage, where he kept 15 gallons of a flame-retardant spray called Safe-T-Guard. Using a garden sprayer, he applied the clear liquid to his 5,500-square-foot home's decks, eaves and wood siding.
Though houses up and down Garrett's street burned in the blaze, his remained standing. Garrett later found a 3-inch-long blackened ember that had been blown onto his deck. The wood around it had charred but hadn't caught fire -- thanks, he said, to the spray.
"Every one of the neighbors around here wants to get some now," Garrett said.
Garrett's neighbors aren't the only ones. Manufacturers of products such as Safe-T-Guard have seen interest soar in the wake of the fires. And San Diego-based Fire Etc. reports that sales of some of its home fire-retardant products have doubled in recent weeks.
The state of California mandates that fire-retardant materials be used in commercial buildings, including churches and senior centers. But even California's strict regulations weren't enough to save Malibu Presbyterian Church, which burned to the ground during the October wildfires.
Residential properties face no such mandate, so home fire protection is largely a do-it-yourself enterprise. Homeowners should never rely solely on fire retardants for protection, said David Duea, president of Fire Etc. No product is fail-safe; most are far from it.
Smart fire prevention includes clearing brush and debris away from all structures. Woodpiles should be kept at least 30 feet away from the home as well. And when a blaze is on its way, a well-thought-out evacuation plan is far more important than anything sold in a store, experts agree. Even Garrett says that he was foolish not to evacuate. "It was really crazy and dangerous and dumb, and I don't know that I would do it again," he said. But he does swear by the product that he says spared his house.
There are many fire-retardant products available in California, but few are widely marketed to consumers. Garrett learned about Safe-T-Guard through his work as a textile specialist on film sets, where he treated fabrics with the liquid to protect them from open flame. Realizing how useful the product could be, he decided to keep some in case of emergency.
