CITY OF RENO NEWS RELEASE
Residents within the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District will see a fuels reduction project being conducted on
100 acres of Washoe County land near the Sun Valley Regional Park.
The Sierra Team of the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District and Fuels Team is conducting the work.
From now until October 2011, crews will be thinning brush, trees, and dead fuels adjacent to vulnerable homes and infrastructure. This will increase crown spacing between juniper trees; remove ladder fuels, reduce brush continuity to minimize fire spread and intensity; and reduce fuel load to improve forest health. Clippings will be chipped or piled for burning. The prescribed burning of clippings will occur from November 2011 through April 2012 and November 2012 to April 2013.
The project will increase public safety and firefighter safety by reducing the potential intensity of a wildland interface fire, slow the movement of wildfires into or out of the open space thus providing control opportunity for firefighters, and improve access for fire apparatus and personnel into and out of the open space.
The Sun Valley Regional Park Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project is possible because of grant funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
“This project is a partnership with Washoe County Parks to make our community safer and coordinates with area fire districts along with the Nevada Fire Safe Council,” advised Reno Fire Marshall Joan Presley. “It is important to remember wildfire survival takes a community.”
