firebreak

plural firebreaks · alternative fire break

1. firefightingAn area cleared of all flammable material to prevent a fire from spreading across it.

   The firefighters used a bulldozer to clear a firebreak in the forest to try to contain the forest fire.

   3 more examples

   When a fire does break out, it tends to burn longer and further because the natural firebreaks that might have existed from previous, smaller fires are not there.

   2014 September 19, Andrew Gumbel, “California's burning up: firefighters rush to the scene as major wildfires scorch the state”, in The Guardian

   More than 100 provincial and municipal firefighters were brought in, with helicopters and aircraft used to drop water and fire retardant, while bulldozers were digging firebreaks.

   2016 May 4, Nicky Woolf, “Fort McMurray: Canada wildfires force evacuation of oil sands city”, in The Guardian

   A mere 150 round-leaf pomaderris were thought left in the world in 2021 and now a planned firebreak in Victoria could destroy dozens of the plants.

   2025 September 3, Graham Readfearn, “There are just 150 of these creamy-flowered shrubs left in the world – and a Victorian fire break could destroy dozens”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: firetrail

2. figurativelyAny separating barrier.

   That policy could consist of a statement that the declaring nation would not be the first to use nuclear weapons. This would strengthen the firebreak between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons.

   1984, Dietrich Schroeer, Science, Technology and the Nuclear Arms Race, page 293

   2 more examples

   First, it serves to demonstrate that the practice of sustainable critique […] need not be impossibly philosophically rarefied […] Second, it serves as a firebreak against the unrelieved negativity that, it is sometimes charged, follows from Adorno's practices of reflexivity.

   2012, Daniel Levine, Recovering International Relations: The Promise of Sustainable Critique, page 112

   Asked about the idea of a firebreak during the next school holiday, Boris Johnson’s official spokesperson said it was “not true that the government is planning a lockdown or firebreak around the October half-term”.

   2021 September 7, Rowena Mason and Nicola Davis, “No 10 not ruling out ‘firebreak’ lockdown if Covid cases rise”, in The Guardian