Wildfire will never be totally preventable, but the odds of saving your home from one can certainly be tipped in your favor. The process to use is called Maintaining Defensible Space. Our firefighting professionals constantly lecture us on the process, and for good reason — it works! You can see the proof in the photo below:
Living in the forest is wonderful, but unfortunately it is also high maintenance. City and suburb landscapes offer plenty of concrete and asphalt as firebreaks. However, in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), continual maintainence of both natural and man-made fuel hazards is required to keep your property safe from a spreading wildfire. There are numerous sources of free information to help us identify these maintenance tasks, so there is no excuse for not knowing what needs to be done as a WUI property owner.
— OUR EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
The UNR Extension operates the public education program known as Living With Fire. In addition to their fire prevention research, their program includes the dissemination of clear and comprehensive guidlines for defensible space, specifically for the residents of the WUI of Northern Nevada. They also provide all the latest guidance for home design as it applies to fire prevention. Use the link above and you'll open a new browser tab with their website home-page. From there you'll have access to their educational material at no-cost.
Other pertinent educational pamphlets, brochures, checklists and forms, from various local and national sources, can be found by exploring our Defensible Space Resources page.
There is also a link to a list of local, licensed, defensible space landscape contractors who have been classroom trained by the UNR Extension. (Disclaimer: Certified completion of that training course is the sole purpose of sharing that list. No other recommendations are implied by a contractor's presence on the list.)
— PROPERTY OWNER'S RESPONSIBILITY
Each property owner is responsible for maintaining defensible space on their own property. (County mandated WUI property regulations for defensible space are in the making. No implementation date is known at this time.) To formulate and execute your own plan, you can certainly research the articles, pamphlets and brochures we have made available HERE on this website.
Professional recommendations to mitigate your wildfire risks are also available at no cost, conducted by TMFR or NDF. Their recommendations are meant to be an educational experience for the property owner. Use our Contact Us form to make your request.
To repay Firewise USA for their ongoing support in providing us with educational materials, it is the GFC Comittee's job to document our community accomplishments in wildfire risk reduction activities. For that purpose, we ask that whenever you are doing defensible space projects (or hiring people to do them for you), you keep track of your time and expenses on a Volunteer Hourly Worksheet and submit those worksheets to the GFC Committee, which will file a report with Firewise USA. (Instructions for no-cost submission are at the bottom of the form.) There is also a brochure outlining Time/Expense/Investment Examples that shows just how liberal the concept is for what qualifies as wildfire risk reduction work.
Our annual minimum requirement for fuel reduction activity is the equivalent of a $14,000 Community-wide investment, which amounts to about one hour of labor per property per year. Be proud of your fuel reduction accomplishments and report your activity often!
— ASSISTANCE IN MAINTAINING PUBLIC SPACES
There is a rule that public entities (TMFR, NDF, etc.) are not be permitted to do maintenance work on private property. However, the many acres of common area within the GFC are deeded as public, and therefore our partners with their big equipment and manpower are allowed to help us maintain the wildfire fuel that accumulates on them.
Our payback to our partners? — Keep our own property's wildfire fuel under control. Certainly a win-win for everybody.
