If you own a home in Westlake Hills, Rollingwood, Lakeway, Bee Cave, or anywhere in the western half of Travis County, you live in one of the more wildfire-exposed parts of the state. Dense cedar, steep terrain, single-access neighborhoods and a long dry season are a genuinely difficult combination, and it is worth understanding your own property in that context.

The good news is that nearly everything that determines how a Hill Country house fares in a wildfire is on the property itself, and most of it is within reach of a weekend. Here is the checklist.

The lay of the land

A few facts worth knowing about a property in this part of the county.

You are in the Travis County WUI. The county classifies most of the western hill country as wildland-urban interface. Travis County Emergency Services District 9 (the Westlake Fire Department) covers Westlake Hills, Rollingwood, and parts of West Lake Hills. Lakeway has its own fire department. Bee Cave is covered by ESD 6. Which district covers your address, and how far the nearest staffed station is, are matters of public record worth knowing about your own property.

Single-access roads matter. Many neighborhoods on this side of town have one way in and one way out. That is not a defensible-space problem, but it is a genuine evacuation problem, and it is worth knowing your own second way out before you need it.

Cedar density is your specific problem. The Hill Country has more Ashe juniper per acre than almost anywhere else in Texas. Cedar is the most volatile common species in the region. The good news is cedar is also the easiest species to identify and the most measurable to thin.

The 10-item checklist

Walk through this with a notebook and your phone. Photograph each item. The photos are worth keeping with your own property records regardless of whether you fix everything in one weekend.

1. Five-foot non-combustible perimeter. Walk the foundation of the house. Anywhere that has wood mulch, cedar shrubs, juniper, brush, a wooden fence section, stacked firewood, or a wood pile, flag it. Replace with gravel, stone, or bare soil out to 5 feet. This is the single highest-impact item on the list.

2. Cedar more than 30 feet from the house. Walk Zone 1 (5 to 30 feet from the structure). Note any cedar, juniper, or thicket of either. The recommendation is to remove cedar within 30 feet entirely. If you can only do part, prioritize the cedar nearest the structure.

3. Tree canopy 10 feet from the wall and 10 feet from the chimney. Live oaks are fine to keep, but the canopy should not touch or hang over the structure. Trim branches back to 10 feet of clearance. Trim any branches within 10 feet of the chimney top.

4. Roof and gutters cleared. Walk around the house and look up. Leaves, cedar duff, and pine needles in the gutters are the most common ignition path on a Hill Country property. Embers land in the gutter, the leaves smolder, the flame moves to the soffit, the soffit gives it a path into the attic. Clean the gutters. Remove debris from the roof valleys and around the chimney.

5. Class B or better roof material. Pull your declarations page or the seller's disclosure from when you bought. Note the roof material and the rating. Composite asphalt shingle is typically Class A or Class B; cedar shake (still legal in some Travis County jurisdictions but heavily restricted) is Class C or unrated. Cedar shake on a Hill Country roof is the single largest structural exposure on this list, and replacing it is a planned project rather than an emergency one.

6. Vent screening. Walk the eaves. Look at every soffit vent, gable vent, and dryer vent. Are they screened with 1/8-inch metal mesh? If they are open, or screened with larger mesh, replace the screens. Embers entering an attic vent is one of the top three structural ignition paths in wildfire post-event analysis. The fix is cheap and it is one of the few that is both invisible from aerial imagery and provable with a homeowner photo.

7. Deck and porch underside clear. Look under the back deck. If there are leaves, branches, scrap wood, or stored items, clear it out. The space under a deck is a common ignition pocket. Some homeowners install metal flashing or wire mesh skirting around the deck base; both are recommended in IBHS guidance.

8. Defensible space documentation. After the work above, photograph each zone from multiple angles. Time-stamped, geotagged photos of the cleared perimeter, the thinned cedar, the cleaned gutters, the screened vents. A before-and-after pair is the most useful artifact you can produce here, and it is the one that is impossible to reconstruct once the work is done.

9. Firewise USA chapter contact. Many neighborhoods on this side of town are recognized Firewise USA communities. Check if yours is. The Firewise USA public chapter directory at firewise.org lists chapters by zip code. If your neighborhood is recognized, the chapter contact can give you the most recent community-level documentation. If your neighborhood is not yet a chapter, that is a 90-day organizational project worth starting.

10. Re-walk it once a year, from the same spots. One pass is a snapshot; a series is a record. Pick a fixed month, stand in the same places each time, and shoot the same set. Cedar regrows, gutters refill, mulch creeps back toward the foundation, and a vent screen someone removed to run a cable stays removed. An annual walk catches all of that while it is still a ten-minute fix, and three years of sets from the same positions show wear developing in a way no single set can.

Travis County and ESD 9 specifics

A few items unique to this part of the county.

Travis County ESD 9 (Westlake Fire Department) publishes wildfire preparedness guidance and runs free home assessments for residents in the district. Call ahead. The assessment is independent of insurance and the report is yours to use however you like.

Lakeway Fire Department runs similar programs. Lakeway is also a recognized Firewise USA community at the city level.

Bee Cave / ESD 6 has been increasing visibility on WUI risk in the past two years. If your property is in ESD 6, the same playbook applies.

Travis County Office of Emergency Management maintains the Warn Central Texas notification system. Sign up at warncentraltexas.org. A written evacuation plan that everyone in the household has actually read is worth making at the same time.

Documenting the chapter contact

If your neighborhood is a Firewise USA recognized community, the chapter has annual documentation requirements (community work hours logged, annual education event held, annual investment in mitigation tracked). That record exists whether or not anyone asks for it, and most residents have never seen it. Pull the latest annual report from your chapter and keep a copy with your own property records.

If your neighborhood is not yet recognized, the path to recognition is straightforward but takes time. The chapter directory has the application form. Communities that walk through the recognition process typically take 6 to 12 months, mostly limited by the calendar of community events.

What this checklist will and will not do

It will reduce the continuity of fuel around your structure, which is the mechanism that actually decides whether an ember shower becomes a house fire. It will close the ember paths that post-event analysis finds over and over: open vents, a loaded gutter, a deck full of leaves, a woodpile against a wall. And it will leave you holding a dated, organized record of your own property's condition.

It will not make a house fireproof. It will not substitute for replacing a 22-year-old roof or moving a 30-foot cedar that has been within 5 feet of the foundation for ten years. And it is not a prediction about any insurance outcome: we document condition, and what any of it means for a policy is between you, a licensed Texas insurance professional, and your carrier.

What it does do is put the homeowner in the position of knowing, rather than guessing, what shape their property is in before a bad afternoon in August forces the question.

Run your free natural disaster risk assessment

It takes about 20 minutes on your phone. You'll get a dated record of your home's condition, and you decide what to do with it.

Start my free assessment

Home Health Intel documents condition. We are not a public insurance adjuster (TX Ins. Code § 4102). Carrier underwriting decisions belong to your carrier.

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This article is informational and not legal, financial, or insurance advice. Talk to a Texas-licensed insurance professional for advice specific to your situation.