Olympic Heights - Old Greenwood Fuel Reduction Project

The Olympic Heights / Old Greenwood Fuelbreak project is a high-priority Community Wildfire Protection Plan Project (CWPP) funded by “Measure T” that will be implemented by The Truckee Fire Protection District (TFPD). The project includes implementation of forest fuels reduction activities in the form of manual and mechanical thinning, mastication, and tracked chipping on an approximately 230-acre footprint. The project area is located on undeveloped lots owned by Truckee Donner Land Trust and Tahoe Club Company LLC within and adjacent to Interstate 80 and the Old Greenwood and Olympic Heights subdivisions. The project interfaces with smaller developed lots with homes and aims to improve defensible space for over 80 small private parcels that interface with the project area. The project is an integral part of the TFPD’s landscape fuel reduction strategy aimed at protecting the Truckee community and Wildland Urban Interface from future catastrophic wildfire events. This fuel reduction treatment is strategically located in order to moderate the movement of wildfire, provide safer egress for evacuating citizens, provide safer ingress for resources related to suppression activities, and ultimately facilitate in the protection of life and property for surrounding communities. The prescription includes thinning from below of small diameter conifers less than 16” DBH and shrubs to achieve adequate vertical and horizontal spacing. A large majority of trees needing removal are less than 10” DBH. Post treatment conditions should result in increased canopy base height and quadratic mean diameter, with the largest most vigorous trees retained in a well-spaced arrangement. In order of retention, species preference would be Sugar Pine/Western White Pine, Jeffrey Pine/Ponderosa Pine, Lodgepole Pine, White Fir.