Why Does Trash Day Matter?

Highly Combustible Garbage Cans “Equal to 3.5 Full Gas Cans”

July 2025. By JT Wilkinson. If I say “fuels,” where does your mind go? A hundred percent of the time I say it, people in high wildfire hazard zones begin to speak of their trees and shrubs. Those aren’t the fuels that concern us most!

What does concern us? Human-made objects. They tend to be more explosive and easier for wildfire embers to ignite. They burn hotter and longer, and they emit more toxins as they burn. Ironically, they are the objects we often nestle right next to our homes. Our eyes and minds skip over them as we look for “fuel continuity” and clear the 5-feet closest to our homes of “flammable items” and “landscape materials.”

Join 2021 Native Plant Garden Tour host Teresa Mackey, along with Cassy Aoyagi and I as we chat with KTLA’s LA Unscripted about these every day objects – and why trash day has an outsized impact on home survival. Of course, we discussed several tips for reducing the risks these combustible objects present to your home.

We love the way LA Unscripted captured a puppy-height view of Teresa’s lush, leafy, ever-blooming garden! Check here to see more of the garden or check Instagram my Q&A about her meadow. Otherwise, read on for more trash talk.

The trash bins in this side yard have a nook outside of a clean, clear, ember resistant Zone 0. A concrete retaining wall separates the bins from epi-wood fencing and foliage. The home in the Rustic, Modern Playspace is also “hardened” to resist ignition.

Our Trashy Tips

(Dayna is so good with the puns I have to pitch in!) The photo above shows a side yard well prepared for fire. The clear and clean walkway is a full 5-feet wide and non-combustible. The bins sit outside of this area and are also separated from hillside foliage by a stucco and concrete retaining wall that extends well above their height.

If this isn’t your bin situation quite yet, there are still simple behaviors that will increase your safety by a good measure:

  • Store Bins Outside of Zone 0: Most Angelenos keep our bins next to our homes. Convenient most of the time – but not in wildfire conditions. If you cannot keep bins in the garage, keep or move them 5 feet or more from your home and other structures.
  • Place Bins Away from Fences: Wood fences were found to be second only to bins as sources of ignition during the LA Fires. Or were they first? Either way, these two objects should not be partnered in our landscapes.
  • Contain Your Bins: In an ideal world, bins are kept in a well-sealed garage. Yes, I hear your groans! If this is onerous, consider moving them in on red flag days. Alternatively, a non-combustible wall or container separating them from your home can reduce the risk they pose.
Large boulders sit curbside under the red Island Snapdragon blooms. They separate curbside trash bins and cars
from the foliage in the Hummingbird Haven.

More Information

In our conversation with KTLA’s Dayna Devon, I speak to findings from the systematic review of burn areas conducted by CAL FIRE and the Institute for Business and Home Safety’s Wildfire Prepared team. Here is a little more “trashy” detail from their study:

Here is the deeper understanding of the role trash cans and trash day played during the LA Fires – it dropped by jaw and changed the way we assess “fuel continuity” in the gardens we maintain.