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 wildlands meet.

This report was prepared specifically for the Washoe County communities within the Lake Tahoe Basin in conjunction with the Nevada Community Wildfire Risk / Hazard Assessment Project. The communities included in this assessment are among those named 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 two communities assessed in the Washoe County portion of the Lake Tahoe Basin are delineated on Figure 1-1 and are Incline Village and Crystal Bay.

An RCI project team consisting of experts in the fields of fire behavior and suppression, geographic information systems (GIS), natural resource ecology and forest health collaborated to complete the evaluation for each community. Data and local expertise were compiled from elected officials, fire personnel, and other individuals in the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the US Forest Service Lake Tahoe Management Unit, and the Nevada Division of Forestry. The field teams spent over a month inventorying conditions in the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District and completing the verification portion of the risk assessment.

To arrive at the community hazard assessment score, four primary factors that affect potential fire hazard were assessed: community design, structure survivability, availability of fire suppression resources, and physical conditions such as the vegetative fuel load and topography. Fuel density was assessed from the results of field measurements and ocular estimates based upon local calibration. The project fire specialist assigned an ignition risk rating of low, moderate or high to each community. The rating was based upon historical ignition patterns, interviews with North Lake Tahoe fire personnel and other agency Fire Management Officers, field visits to each community, and professional judgment based on experience with wildland fire ignitions in the eastern Sierra forest region.

This report describes in detail the factors considered and reviewed during the assessment of each community. The general results are summarized in Table 1-1.

Both Incline Village and Crystal Bay rated high for potential ignition risk and extreme for the fire hazard rating. These ratings are primarily attributed to inadequate defensible space, combustible building materials, heavy fuels, and steep southwest facing slopes.

Recommendations for creating defensible space were uniformly given to landowners in each community who have not yet reduced fuels on their private property. Defensible space is the homeowner's responsibility and is an essential first line of defense for saving lives and property during a catastrophic wildland fire.

Recommendations were formulated to mitigate the hazardous conditions for each problem area that was identified. The most widely needed treatment was directed to the US Forest Service and the State of Nevada to reduce the vegetative fuel load in the interface area. The recommended approach, known as “thinning from below,” involves removal of smaller trees, brush, and dead and down materials to achieve the desired tree density and eliminate hazardous ground fuels that could spread fire into the forest canopy causing a crown fire. Implementation of the prescribed treatments will also reduce competition among the residual trees for sunlight and water, and improve forest health. Decreased tree mortality will reduce the amount of accumulated dead and down material contributing to the fuel load on the forest floor in the future.

Excessive amounts of biomass (vegetative fuel) will be generated from fuel reduction treatments in the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District that must be chipped, burned, or removed from the forest to achieve the required fuel load reduction. Two of the greatest obstacles to successfully completing the recommended fuel reduction projects will be acquiring access to the treatment areas with the necessary equipment and disposal of the accumulated biomass. Recommendations to overcome these complications were directed to the US Forest Service and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

Currently, the most economical method approved in the Tahoe Basin for biomass removal on steep forested areas is to hand cut, pile, and burn. This method is both labor-intensive and untimely. It requires a minimum of two years to complete in order to allow piles to dry before they can be burned. Only a limited number of brush and slash piles can be burned during each burn season to comply with air quality regulations and safety considerations. National Forest lands in the Lake Tahoe Basin are already scattered with brush piles awaiting the appropriate conditions for burning. Helicopter logging has been used but is extremely expensive (current estimates are $7,000 per hour).

Alternative methods for biomass removal, such as cable yarding, and additional biomass disposal or utilization methods must be approved to complete the necessary fuel reduction treatments in a sensible timeframe that will be effective in reducing the threat to North Lake Tahoe residents and protect biodiversity, water quality, and the visual resources of the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Each recommended mitigation project will require detailed implementation plans, environmental analyses, and construction permits prior to commencement. The recommended priority for project implementation is identified in Table 1-2. The minimum cost for each project was estimated on currently accepted methods in the Tahoe Basin. If environmental permitting could be expedited, and temporary access and biomass removal alternatives were available, the costs for treatment may be substantially reduced.

Each of the following efforts must be undertaken immediately and simultaneously to reduce the risks and hazards in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Each are of equal priority:

• Homeowners must immediately implement defensible space in accordance with existing ordinances.

• The US Forest Service, fire districts, and other landowners must finalize detailed implementation plans and permitting for the priority treatment areas.

• The TRPA, US Forest Service, and Fire Districts must explore alternative treatment methods for steep slopes such as cable yarding.

• Funding needs to be secured as soon as possible to implement the proposed wildfire hazard mitigation projects identified in this report.

There is no guarantee that a wildfire will not occur in any of these communities in North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District even if all of the recommendations in this report are implemented. However, community awareness and individual attention to fuels management on private property will help achieve the highest level of wildfire safety possible.