The table shows, for 40 places, how many households say wood is their main heating fuel. It matters for anyone thinking about firewood, chimney clearance, and the trees on a wood-burning property.
What the dataset is
The numbers come from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel). Each household answers what fuel heats the home most. Only the main fuel is counted, so a home that burns wood in a stove as backup or for the fire is not in these figures.
Small places carry wide margins of error, so a few dozen households can move a percentage a lot. Round them in your head and treat them as approximate.
What stands out
- Palomino Valley and Pyramid Highway (ZIP 89510) leads at 27.7%, or about 169 of 610 households. Virginia City follows at 26.5% (89 of 336) and Topaz Ranch Estates at 25.8% (190 of 737).
- Silver Springs is at 14.8%, which is 341 of about 2,300 households, the largest raw count among the high-share places. Smith Valley is 13.5%, Hawthorne 12.1% and Lemmon Valley 9.4%.
- Large places have low shares but real numbers. South Reno (ZIP 89521) has 431 wood-heat households, the North Valleys and Stead 416, Reno 298 and Carson City 288, each under 3%.
- Nevada as a whole is at 1.0% and the United States at 1.4%.
- Zephyr Cove, Stateline, Glenbrook, Crystal Bay, Genoa and Caughlin Ranch show 0.0% in the table, which usually means a sample too small to show any.
What it means for a homeowner
The places where wood heat is common are mostly rural, higher or farther from town. Those properties are also the ones with the most trees and brush near the house, so firewood and fire safety go together. Standing dead trees close to the house are better removed than saved for fuel.
Battle Born Tree Service offers firewood and wood chips; call the office at 775.232.8243 for availability and pricing. For how wood is measured and stored, see how big a cord of wood is, how to season and stack firewood and the Nevada rules on moving firewood. The service page is firewood and wood chips.
Limits of the data
These are main-fuel answers from a survey, not a count of chimneys or stoves, and homes that burn wood as a second source are missing. A high percentage in a small place can rest on very few households, so look at the household columns as well as the percentage.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel) (retrieved October 1, 2026)