Preparing Your Bamboo For Fire Season

In our newest video, owner Jennifer York demonstrates the art of keeping bamboo as safe as possible from fire. The key, in addition to careful placement, is proper MAINTENANCE! Jen demonstrates best practices for clearing out dead bamboo canes and excess leaf litter.

Live bamboo plants are not particularly flammable. In fact, the “woody” material of live bamboo culms is hard to ignite, even with direct flame (as seen in this video). Live bamboo canes contain very few volatile oils and unusually high amounts of silica. As long as dead canes and excess leaf drop are removed, and placement is considered carefully, bamboo is no more of a fire hazard than any other landscaping plant!

We greatly appreciate and want to support efforts to limit fire danger in our region. Bamboo should not be directly blamed or placed on any pyrophytic plant “hit list”. Rather than bans, regulations regarding the maintenance and placement of all landscaping plants (particularly ones high in volatile oils) should be considered. Bamboo on each property should be maintained and evaluated on a case-by-case basis. While it is true that even well-maintained bamboo will eventually burn if engulfed in hot flames, it is no worse than many other landscape plants (and better than most)!

Watch our demonstration and see for yourself how to maintain your bamboo with fire safety in mind, and indeed, how hard it is to set fire to well-maintained, live bamboo!