Lot clearing and brush mowing in Cold Springs, NV

Cold Springs is one of the newest communities we serve. The American Community Survey puts about two thirds of its roughly 3,700 homes in 2000 or later, on about 8.8 square miles near the state line north of Reno.

At a glance

• 87.7% of buildings in the indirect (ember) exposure zone
• 36 fire perimeter records of 300+ acres within about 10 miles
• About 68% of homes built in 2000 or later
• About 49.6 miles from our Carson City yard

What goes into a one-trip plan?

A list made before the trailer is loaded. At the estimate the arborist walks the property and writes down everything that should be done while the equipment is there: the ground to be mowed, any thicket for the masticating head, trees to remove or limb up, stumps, and what gets hauled.

You then choose what to include. The point is that the choice is made once, with the full picture, instead of finding out after the crew has left that the far corner needed the machine too.

• Size of the area and how a truck and trailer reach it
• Gates, septic lids, wells and irrigation the loader must avoid
• Which plants and trees stay
• Where chips or clippings may be left and what must leave the site

Why embers set the priorities here

The USDA Forest Service ranks wildfire risk to homes in Cold Springs higher than 98.4% of US communities. Its exposure split is unusual: 12.3% of buildings direct, 87.7% indirect, none minimal. Indirect exposure is about embers and fire moving from property to property.

In a community of fairly new homes, that points to the ordinary untended spots: dry weeds along a back fence, tumbleweeds stacked in a corner by the wind, an unbuilt parcel between two houses. Brush mowing and a hand clean-up remove the places an ember can catch.

The busiest fire map in our service area

Within about 10 miles of the centre of Cold Springs, the National Interagency Fire Center's perimeter history holds 36 records of 300 acres or more since 1980, the highest count for any community we cover. Some fires appear in the data more than once, so read it as a measure of how often the surrounding range burns, not as an exact tally.

Among them, the Redrock Fire of 2009 is mapped at 10,549 acres, centred about 6 miles away, and the Baccarat Fire of 2020 at 10,456 acres, about 6.8 miles away.

Readying a vacant parcel

Growth here is recent, and parcels are still being prepared for homes. Lot clearing removes the brush from the pad and the drive by the roots, takes out any trees and stumps in the footprint and hauls the debris in our own trucks. See lot clearing for builders and land owners for how we work with a build schedule.

The Stead weather station, about 6 miles away, averages about 11 inches of precipitation a year (NOAA 1991-2020 normals). A cleared lot that then sits for a season will grow a crop of weeds, so time the clearing close to the start of construction or plan on a mow in between.