Executive Summary
The Healthy Forests Initiative was announced by the White House in 2002 to implement the core components of the National Fire Plan Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment 10-year Comprehensive Strategy. The Plan calls for more active forest and rangeland management to reduce the threat of wildland fire in the wildland-urban interface, the area where homes and wildland meet.
This report was prepared specifically for the communities within Churchill County identified in the Federal Register list of communities at risk within the vicinity of federal lands that are most vulnerable to the threat of wildfire. The communities assessed in Churchill County are listed in Table 1-1. The majority of the communities in Churchill County lie along the U.S. Highway 50 corridor.
The Nevada Fire Safe Council contracted with Resource Concepts, Inc. (RCI) to assemble a project team consisting of experts in the fields of fire behavior and suppression, natural resource ecology, and geographic information systems (GIS) to complete the assessment for each Churchill County community listed in the Federal Register. The RCI Project Team spent several days inventorying conditions in Churchill County and completing the primary data collection and verification portion of the risk assessment.
This report describes in detail the data and information analyzed and considered during the assessment of each community. The general results are summarized in Table 1-1. Five primary factors that affect potential fire hazard were assessed to arrive at the community hazard assessment score: community design, structure survivability, defensible space, availability of fire suppression resources, and physical conditions such as the vegetative fuel load and topography. Information on fire suppression capabilities and responsibilities for Churchill County communities was obtained through interviews with local fire chiefs and agency fire management officers. The RCI Project Team Fire Specialist assigned an ignition risk rating for each community of low, moderate, or high. The rating was based upon historical ignition patterns, interviews with fire department personnel and state and federal fire agencies, field visits to each community, and professional judgment based on experience with wildland fire ignitions in Nevada.
Fire suppression in Churchill County is provided by the Fallon/Churchill Volunteer Fire Department, and the only paid fire department in Churchill County at the Fallon Naval Air Station (NAS). Additional resources are available from the Bureau of Land Management as needed and are dispatched from the Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center in Minden, Nevada.
The predominant fuel type in Churchill County is salt desert shrub vegetation comprised of sagebrush, rabbitbrush, greasewood, Indian ricegrass, and bottlebrush squirreltail, with cheatgrass which is an invasive annual grass, in every community. Salt desert shrub is generally considered a low to moderate fuel hazard. Fallon and the Fallon Outskirts have irrigated agricultural fields and pastures that provide a buffer zone between residential areas and wildland fuels. The primary hazard to these communities is irrigation ditches with poplar, Russian olive, cottonwood, and cattails. Irrigation ditches pose a hazard in that they can act as a wick, and draw fire through accumulated vegetation with rapid spread rates toward structures in the Fallon and Fallon Outskirts Communities.
| Community | Interface Classification | Fuel Hazard Conditions in the Wildland- Urban Interface | Ignition Risk |
Fire Hazard Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold Springs | Intermix | Low | Moderate | Moderate |
| Eastgate | Rural | Low | Moderate | High |
| Fallon | Classic | Low | Low | Low |
| Fallon Naval Air Station | Classic | Low | Low | Low |
| Fallon Outskirts | Rural | Moderate | Low | Low |
| Middlegate | Intermix | Low | Moderate | Moderate |
There is extensive wildfire history in Churchill County. Wildfire history is summarized in Table 3-2, and detailed on Figure 3-2. There have been no recent efforts undertaken in Churchill County to reduce the risk of wildland fire or mitigate hazardous conditions that may contribute to the uncontrolled advance of a wildfire or loss of life or property during a wildfire event.
There is no way to completely eliminate the threat of wildfire in the wildland-urban interface. The recommendations in the Community Wildfire Risk/Hazard Assessment Report are based upon analyses of community-specific conditions in Churchill County. The recommendations are meant to:
- Encourage defensible space and fuel reduction projects where needed to reduce the hazards inherent in wildland interface areas. Greenstrips can slow the advance of a fire and provide a place where firefighters can stand against an oncoming fire. Residents in all communities need to read the recommendations for their community, examine their property in light of the risks and hazards detailed in the community sections of this report, and implement the recommendations pertinent to their community.
- Promote community-wide involvement to effectively reduce the risk of wildfire ignitions in and near communities. When neighbors work together, much more can be accomplished community-wide to make a community more fire safe.
- Increase public awareness of wildfire risks and hazards in communities, and communicate to homeowners regarding what they can do to reduce those risks and hazards.
Close and continued coordination between citizens, local fire agencies, and the Bureau of Land Management is crucial for the implementation of the proposed greenstrips, fuel reduction projects, and fire safety efforts in Churchill County. To be most effective, fire safe practices need to be implemented on a community-wide basis. Proactive efforts to effectively reduce the risk of wildfire ignitions near communities, implementing defensible space and fuel reduction projects, and public education programs, will help to mitigate the hazards inherent in wildland interface areas.