“Practicing good defensible space is an important part of being a property owner at Tahoe Donner.”
The Donner Ridge Fire of 1960 burned 44,800 acres including 3,200 acres in the western half of Tahoe Donner. The fire changed the ecosystem from forest to brush and records show that after the fire 1,525 acres were salvaged logged and 17.7 million board feet of timber was removed from the burned area.
Over the years, several fires have threatened Tahoe Donner either burning into or up to the Tahoe Donner boundary. The most recent fire to threaten Tahoe Donner was the I-80 Fire in 2007. US Forest Service records show that over the last 35 years, over 150 fires burned in or within a two mile radius of Tahoe Donner.
The Forestry Department’s goal is to maintain a healthy forest and lessen the chance of a catastrophic wildland fire threatening Tahoe Donner. So, how do we improve the health of the forest and reduce the threat of fire?
There are several programs, one of the goals of the Forestry Department is to create and maintain fuel breaks in strategic areas through the following methods:
Remove brush and plant trees to establish a forest on the landscape
Masticate brush from around trees to increase growth of the forest and change the arrangement of the fuels. This also removes the fuel ladder.
Create a mosaic of practices to lessen the impacts to the human eye and encourage different wildlife species
Chip all excess vegetative material in the forest or pile and burn
Bill Houdyschell,
Tahoe Donner Forester
