Collier County woman credits clearing brush for saving home from Picayune Strand Fire

COLLIER COUNTY, FLA. (WINK) — A Collier County woman who evacuated during the Picayune Strand State Forest fire is moving back in with a clear message for her neighbors: stay prepared.

• RELATED: WINK News goes into the Picayune Strand State Forest as crews work to contain brush fire

Alison Hiten lives on wooded property filled with dogs, horses and a full hen house. For her, clearing brush isn't optional, it's routine maintenance that may have saved her home this time.

"I was saying to myself, 'I don't like the way that this looks,' because I had put palm fronds down because I thought the chickens liked it, but the babies couldn't get through. So I'm like, 'You know what? Let me just clear it out," Hiten said.

She cleared dry brush from around her chicken shed just before the fire threatened her property.

"If I had all that dry brush there, it would have gone Baboom. The whole shed would have been gone," Hiten said.

This isn't Hiten's first experience with fire threatening her land. She's watched flames come dangerously close before, and each time reinforces the same lesson.

"Don't be lazy. Get up out of bed in the morning and start clearing your property of all the dead stuff, because we're in a fire zone, and this is not the first fire we had," Hiten said.

Hiten watched crews battle the blaze near her property and described the firefighting effort as incredible. She's hoping for a break from the flames but isn't changing her approach to land management.