We did not make any claim of fire resistance in our blog article. We are focussed mainly on drought tolerance. You are correct junipers are not fire resistant and should not be planted close to a building.

We have 2 juniper hedges , though they are not thriving. I am surprised they are suggested under the heading of fire resistant hedges. My understanding is that they would light up like a candle in a fire and cause adjacent buildings to catch on fire.

Our study did not cover building materials. That is a huge separate question. We were looking at the relative flammability of common organic mulches. All organic mulches will be flammable at some temperature and perhaps that temperature is usually lower than for vinyl siding. I do not know. All we can say is that the risk of fire transmission for composted organic mulch is clearly lower than the other mulches we tested

It is difficult to answer this question without knowing more about your set up. Most plants will generally need some irrigation in the Okanagan and drip is most efficient.

There is a blog entry on this subject https://okanaganxeriscape.org/mulch-flammability/ and it states that composted mulches like Nature’s Gold are in fact firesmart.

The soil in the Okanagan is alkaline and so is the water we use. This is common for semi arid regions. I would estimate the average PH to be 7.5