Action sheet — Before the fire
Making your home accessible to the fire service
A tanker lorry is 2.5 metres wide, 3.5 metres high and weighs 13 tonnes: if your driveway, your gate or low-hanging branches prevent it from passing, your home will not be protected. The inspection takes ten minutes; making the necessary adjustments takes a weekend.
Key points
- Dimensions to be maintained: 3 m wide, 3.5 m high, running continuously from the road to the house.
- Gate can be opened without electricity (key, manual release available).
- A manoeuvring area: for turning round or avoiding another aircraft — an aircraft cannot reverse for 200 metres along the runway.
- A house number that is clearly visible from the road, both by day and by night.
Equipment: measuring tape or rangefinder · pruning shears/pruning saw · reflective number plate
Why it’s important
When a fire threatens a neighbourhood, the team leaders carry out a quick assessment: the houses justifiable (unobstructed access, cleared surroundings, space to turn round) are sent a fire engine; the others are left to burn — not by choice, but because sending a crew into a narrow cul-de-sac lined with burning vegetation is a documented death trap. Your access route is literally your home’s lifeline, and it is judged in seconds from the road.
How to do it, step by step
Try out the template
Walk along the path, imagining it to be 3 metres wide and 3.5 metres high: low-hanging branches, narrow sections between low walls, parked vehicles, garden lampposts. Measure at any points where you’re unsure — the eye always underestimates.
Prune and clear
Cut back anything that falls within the template (branches will grow back: annual inspection). In the OLD zone, the by-law requires a cleared strip along access routes in any case.
Improve the portal’s reliability
Clear width ≥ 3 m where possible; motorised system with a manual release that is easily accessible and known to everyone; in summer, some people leave the gate in the ‘open’ position (see tip). A gate locked by an electric lock with no power supply = the house is inaccessible.
Plan the manoeuvre
A turning area (ideally 14 metres in diameter) or a passing place halfway along the route for long private roads. If neither is available, please be aware that the emergency services will have to decide what to do when they arrive on the scene.
Identifiable appointment
A high-contrast, reflective number visible from the road, your name on the tank, and if you have a water supply (swimming pool, cistern), report it.
The mistakes that ruin everything
- The ‘privacy’ hedge, which narrows the path to 2.2 metres — impassable for vehicles.
- The remote-controlled gate, the mechanical lock on which nobody knows how to open.
- The classic car parked in the turning area all summer.
- The taut wire or the ‘anti-intrusion’ barrier stretching across the path, invisible in the smoke.
The tip that makes all the difference
During a red alert, if you evacuate: leave the gate OPEN and the shutters closed. This is the signal – ‘house evacuated, defend it if possible’ – that the fire crews will recognise.
Frequently Asked Questions
The risk changes every day. So do your reflexes.
Check the fire alert status for your department, monitor current fires and report a fire via the Feux de Forêt mobile app.