part of their city planning strategy. An example is the city of Revelstoke, British Columbia, including Firebreaks in their Community Wildfire Protection Plan. Effectiveness Depending on the environmental conditions, and the relative effectiveness of a given firebreak, firebreaks often have to be backed up with other firefighting efforts. Even then, it is still sometimes possible for fire to spread across a seemingly impenetrable divide. During the worst part of the fire season in southern California, strong Santa Ana winds were observed to blow carpets of burning embers across eight-lane freeways. During the 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park, hot embers managed to cross the Lewis Canyon, a natural canyon up to a mile wide and 600 feet (180 m) deep. In Australia, firebreaks are less effective against eucalyptus forest fires, since intense fires in tinder-dry eucalyptus forest spread through flying embers, which can be carried by the winds to trigger new blazes several kilometres away. In 2019, goats deployed to graze the nearby flammable vegetation and create a firebreak helped save the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum and Getty Museum from California wildfires. History Due to a lack of a standardized firefighting force at the time, the Great Fire of London in 1666 instead saw the Tower of London garrison using gunpowder and fire hooks in a widespread, ad-hoc firebreaking campaign across Central London. Historians believe this to have been one of the major contributing factors to the eventual defeat of the inferno. The world's most expensive firebreak was created when part of Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco was dynamited to stop the spread of fire resulting from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Firefighting after an earthquake can be especially challenging, because an earthquake can cause water mains to rupture, resulting in a complete loss of water pressure. See also Controlled burn Defensible space (fire control) Fire ecology Firefighting Firewall (construction) Fuel ladder Glossary of wildfire terms Wildfire suppression References External links Wildfire prevention Wildfire suppression Wildfire ecology Forestry and the environment Land management