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 Clark County, Nevada that were identified in the 2001 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 Clark County are listed in Table 1-1.

The Nevada Fire Safe Council contracted with Resource Concepts, Inc. (RCI) to assemble a project team of experts in the fields of fire behavior and suppression, natural resource ecology, and geographic information systems (GIS) to complete the assessment for each Clark County community listed in the Federal Register. The RCI Project Team spent almost three weeks inventorying conditions in Clark County and completing the primary data collection and verification portions of the risk assessment.

This report describes in detail the data and information collected, 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, construction materials, 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 Clark County communities was obtained from local Fire Chiefs and state and federal agency Fire Management Officers. The fire specialists on the RCI Project Team assigned an ignition risk rating for each community of low, moderate, or high. The rating was based upon historical ignition patterns, the opinions of local, state, and federal fire agency personnel, field visits to each community, and the fire specialists’ professional judgments based on experience with wildland fire ignitions in Nevada.

Extreme Hazard Communities

The extreme hazard communities in Clark County are all located at higher elevations within or adjacent to the Spring Mountains. The communities with the most hazardous conditions include Kyle Canyon, Lee Canyon, Mt. Springs, and Trout Canyon. The homes in these communities that are situated amongst dense trees and shrubs are in urgent need of defensible space treatment. The forests surrounding these communities need aggressive thinning in order to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires and lower the probability for loss of life and property. The current fuel conditions, limited access, and high ignition risks characterizing these communities are the precursors for disastrous fires such as those that have plagued the western United States with increasing regularity in recent years. Fuelbreaks and fuels reduction treatments are recommended around these communities as well as around the high hazard communities of Cold Creek and Torino Ranch. Increased visitor levels to these areas underscore the need to establish and publicize evacuation routes and safe zones to enhance the safety for residents and for those unfamiliar with the area.

The communities of Cold Creek, Kyle Canyon, Lee Canyon, Mt. Springs, Trout Canyon, and Torino Ranch are also advised to develop helicopter dip sites that will enhance initial attack capabilities.

Communities located along riparian corridors such as Bunkerville, Glendale, Logandale, Mesquite, Moapa, and Overton are advised to implement or continue existing tamarisk abatement programs to remove this flammable invasive plant and replace it with more fire-resistant species.

All communities in Clark County need to implement, maintain, or improve defensible space treatments. In communities with sparse vegetative fuels, an annual treatment of weeds and general clean up is important.

Additional water storage capacity, such as 50,000-gallon portable tanks, is recommended for the communities of Goodsprings, Sandy Valley, and Sloan for wildfire initial attack and suppression.

Several Clark County Fire Departments have inadequate equipment for wildland firefighting and/or personnel who have not been trained in wildland fire behavior and suppression techniques. An important recommendation of this report is to provide annual wildland fire training to all fire department members. All Captains need to be trained to the level of Engine Boss and all Chief Officers to the level of Strike Team Leader. It is also recommended that Clark County acquire wildland firefighting equipment, including Type III Brush Engines in order to respond in a safer and more effective manner to wildland fires within the County.

A summary of recommendations for each community is given in Table 1-2. To be most effective, fire safe practices need to be implemented on a community-wide basis. There is no way to completely eliminate the threat that wildfires present to communities at the wildland interface. However, the recommendations in this report are intended to increase public awareness and encourage concerned community members to take proactive actions to effectively reduce the risk of wildfire ignitions near their communities.  Implementing defensible space, fuels reduction projects, and public education programs will help to mitigate the hazards inherent in wildland interface areas.