Carson City tree and wildfire data sheet

Carson City is a consolidated city and county, so this one sheet does the work of a city page and a county page: there is no separate county column. The tables below set the city beside Nevada and the United States, then list the wildfire ranking, the three closest NOAA weather stations and every large fire mapped within about 10 miles. Our office and yard are on US Highway 50 East, about 4.5 miles from the town point, roughly 8 minutes without traffic.

Where Carson City parts company with the rest of Nevada

The median home here was built in 1981. The Nevada median is 1996 and the national one is 1980, so Carson City looks like the country, not like the state around it. Homes built before 1980 are 48.6% of the total, nearly the national 49.7% and more than double Nevada's 22.0%. Only 16.7% were built in 2000 or later, where Nevada as a whole is at 41.5%.

Two smaller differences stand out. Mobile homes are 9.8% of housing, close to double the state's 5.2%. And almost nobody here heats mainly with wood: 1.2% of households, against 1.0% for Nevada and 1.4% for the nation. Bottled gas, at 2.2%, is lower than both.

What the fire rows say, and what they hide

The Forest Service puts Carson City's risk to homes above 98.5% of US communities and above 86.1% of Nevada communities. The likelihood of fire reaching the area ranks at 98% nationally. Those are high ranks, yet only 10.3% of the 22,496 buildings counted sit in the direct-exposure zone; 65.9% fall in the indirect zone and 23.8% in the minimal one.

The fire list shows why the ranking is high anyway. The Waterfall fire of 2004 (8,765 mapped acres) has its center 2.6 miles from the town point, and the Linehan fire of 2006 (5,863 acres) is 5.7 miles out. Three records from 1988, named C-Hill, Kings Canyon and Unknown, each carry about 1,800 acres and sit 1.6 miles away. They are likely one perimeter filed under different names, so count them as one.

What it means for a tree standing on a Carson City lot

Half the housing stock predates 1980, which usually means large, established trees close to roofs, fences and wires. That is the profile where tree removal, dead wooding and cabling come up, and where a certified arborist's assessment before the saw starts matters most. Battle Born has two ISA Certified Arborists on staff.

The fire ranking points at the edge of town and the foothill lots, where defensible space work is the question. For trees in the public right-of-way, the rule on file is to check with Carson City Public Works first. Our permit guide lays out who decides what.

Reading the weather rows

The closest station is Carson City itself, 2.7 miles from the town point at 4,761 feet. It records 9.34 inches of precipitation, 14.0 inches of snowfall and a mean temperature of 51.7 F in a year. The other two stations listed, Incline Village and Glenbrook, are about 11 miles away and more than 1,500 feet higher, so their numbers describe Tahoe, not Carson City streets.

The limits are the usual ones. Census figures are survey estimates with margins of error, the fire list counts large perimeters only, and a ranking says how Carson City compares, not what will happen to a given tree.