Defensible space and fire mitigation in Indian Hills, NV

Indian Hills sits at the north end of Douglas County, just over the line from Carson City, beside US 395 near Jacks Valley Road. The Carson Range rises to the west.

At a glance

• 33.5% of buildings direct exposure, 66.4% indirect
• Waterfall Fire (2004, 8,765 acres) centered about 6 miles away
• Risk to homes higher than 96.9% of US communities
• About 15 minutes from our yard without traffic

Is your lot on the edge or in the middle?

The USDA Forest Service counts about 2,950 buildings in Indian Hills. It places 33.5% in the direct exposure zone, 66.4% in the indirect zone and almost none in the minimal zone. Direct means wildland vegetation is close enough to carry flame to the building. Indirect means embers, or fire spreading from a neighboring building.

If your back fence is the last fence before sagebrush, you are in the first group and the strip behind the house is the job. If there are houses on all sides, you are in the second, and the work is in the 30 feet around your own walls.

The edge lot: the back fence and beyond

On an edge lot we thin or remove the shrubs and trees between the house and the back fence, take out anything dead and lift the low limbs on what stays. Past the fence the land usually belongs to someone else: a neighbor, an association or a public agency. We can mow or thin it only at that owner's request, so if open ground behind you is overgrown, the first call is to whoever owns it.

Inside your fence, plants should stand as separate islands with space between them, as the Living With Fire guide describes for the 5 to 30 foot zone.

The interior lot: small yards, close neighbors

About 87% of Indian Hills homes are detached houses and the median one was built in 1995 (American Community Survey 2020 to 2024). On the subdivision streets a 30-foot ring around one house can reach the neighbor's wall. Most of what can be done fits in a day: shrubs out of the first 5 feet, tree limbs pruned back from the roof and from the house next door, dead wood removed, debris chipped and hauled.

About 7% of homes are manufactured homes. Around those we clear vegetation and debris at the base of the home. Skirting and anything attached to the structure are the owner's.

The fire record next door

Fifteen perimeter records of 300 acres or more since 1980 have centers within about 10 miles of Indian Hills. The Waterfall Fire of 2004 is mapped at 8,765 acres, centered about 6 miles away. The C-Hill and Kings Canyon fires of 1988, at about 1,800 acres each, are centered about 4 miles away. What those fires teach is collected in lessons from local wildfires.

Indian Hills ranks higher than 96.9% of US communities for risk to homes, and higher than 63% of Nevada's.

A short trip for us

After Carson City itself, Indian Hills is one of the closest communities to our yard on US Highway 50 East. A short haul makes small jobs practical: a single juniper hedge, one dead pine, an hour of limbing. The Carson City weather station, about 3 miles from the center of Indian Hills, averages about 9.3 inches of precipitation a year, so most of what grows in these yards is irrigated. Plants that lose their water die, and dead plants are fuel. Have them taken out before summer.