How to Reduce Your Roof’s Vulnerability To Wildfires

The risk of wildfires isn’t just a concern for homeowners with homes in forested areas and mountain communities. Every Colorado home and business owner needs to prioritize materials and roofing styles that reduce your roof’s vulnerability to wildfires. If you need a new roof or a roof replacement, let’s talk about how you can make it as fire-resistant as possible. 

Reducing Your Roof’s Vulnerability to Wildfires

There are three areas to pay attention to if you want to reduce your roof’s vulnerability to wildfires:

• Materials 
• Roof Structure
• Surrounding Property

Roofing Materials With Class-A Fire Rating

Always look for materials that have a Class-A fire rating. Roofing materials with a high fire rating have been tested against strong fires and severe conditions. These materials have been through vigorous testing to see how they react, including flame penetration and spread.

Gaps Between Roof Covering and Sheathing

Fire ratings are given to the roof’s covering, but there are multiple components to a roofing structure. Many roofs will have gaps between the covering and the sheathing. These gaps are attractive to birds who love to build nests. 

Unfortunately, these gaps can make your roof more vulnerable to fires, despite a Class-A rated roof cover. The materials used by birds to build nests are highly flammable, and the airflow created by these gaps can feed the flames and speed up the spread of a wildfire. 

Keep your eye on your roof’s ridges and edges, plug the gaps if necessary to prevent birds from building nests and creating kindling for wildfires.

Clearing Surrounding Property

The last step is to clear the surrounding area and remove anything that could make it easier for a wildfire to reach your home and roof. Remove overhanging branches, and clean your gutters to remove any flammable materials that may gather. 

Hire A Colorado Roofing Contractor

For over a quarter of a century, Horn Brothers Roofing has provided thousands of satisfied customers with expert roofing advice, honest assessments of roofing needs, and quality workmanship performed with a very high degree of competence, integrity, and value.

Get in touch for a free estimate on a new residential or commercial roof.