Wildfire season is here. How can you reduce the risk to your home?

As wildfire season begins, experts say there are a number of steps that homeowners can take to try to protect their homes against raging wildfires.

Officials this week warned Canadians that “the risk of damaging wildfires remains significant” across the country as wildfire season gets underway in many parts of the country.

With 730 fires already burning about 1.47 million hectares of land so far this year, many may be looking to learn what — if anything — they can do to try to protect their homes against the worst effects of wildfires.

While no measures are a guarantee, experts say there are several steps that homeowners can take to try to reduce the risks to their homes from raging wildfires.

“To a very large extent, the degree to which a home may or may not burn down when a wildfire comes through a region is determined by the actions you take well ahead of the wildfire showing up,” said Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo.

The Intact Centre has a three-step guide that illustrate steps that people can take to protect their homes. The first step, which can costs less than $300, has to do with maintaining your property in a fire-ready manner.

“A lot of these actions can be undertaken by homeowners over a long weekend, usually for less than a few hundred dollars. And in many regards, they don’t require special expertise,” Feltmate said.

The first step includes removing tree needles, leaves and other debris from gutters, roof surfaces, decks and balconies as well as regularly cleaning vents.

Feltmate recommends clearing any combustible ground cover like shrubs within 1.5 metres of your house and storing any firewood and lumber away from your residence, while the national program FireSmart Canada recommends keeping firewood in particular no less than 10 metres away.