Tree trimming and pruning in Lemmon Valley, NV

Lemmon Valley is a settled place. The median home was built in 1979, about 96% of homes are owner-occupied, and the trees have had some 45 years to grow over houses and outbuildings. Its wildfire rating is the second highest of any community we serve.

At a glance

• Wildfire risk to homes higher than 99.2% of US communities
• About 53% of homes built before 1980; median year 1979
• About 9% of households heat mainly with wood: chimney clearance matters
• Named in our Google listing's service area

Which pruning cuts matter most for fire?

Three kinds, working from the house outward. The zones come from the University of Nevada, Reno Extension's Living With Fire guide: 0 to 5 feet from the house is the ember-resistant zone, 5 to 30 feet is kept lean, clean and green, and 30 to 100 feet is a reduced-fuel zone.

• At the house: branches that touch or hang over the roof, the eaves and the chimney are taken back. Dead wood above the roof comes out.
• In the yard: lower limbs are raised so flames in grass or shrubs cannot climb into the crown. The guide calls that low growth ladder fuel.
• Between trees: crowns that have grown together are separated by selective reduction, or by removing the weakest tree.

Pruning is one part of the job. Brush, junipers and stored materials are the rest, covered on our Lemmon Valley defensible space page. For a free inspection, the guide says to contact your local fire agency.

Why mention chimneys?

Because people here use them. The American Community Survey estimates that about 9% of Lemmon Valley households heat mainly with wood, against about 1% across Washoe County. Lemmon Valley is a small community of about 4,400 people, so treat the figure as approximate.

A branch over a working chimney is the first thing an arborist looks for on a wood-heated house. It is a simple clearance cut, and it is easy to forget because the tree grew into that space slowly.

What else do trees from the 1970s need?

The ordinary care of middle age. Dead limbs are removed through the whole crown. Long branches over a roof, a driveway or an outbuilding are shortened to reduce weight. Forks are checked for cracks. About 82% of homes here are single-family detached, and a property with several big trees can be planned in stages.

The estimate ranks the work, so you can do the house-side trees first and the far corner later.

How have fires and weather tested this valley?

Twenty-seven fire perimeters of 300 acres or more are mapped within about 10 miles of Lemmon Valley since 1980. The Poeville Road Fire of 2020, mapped at 2,973 acres, and the Reservoir Fire of 1999, mapped at 6,163 acres, are the closest large ones by center point.

Winter adds its own load. The Stead station, about 2 miles away, averages 16.7 inches of snowfall a year, and a gauge at Reno 5.3 N records about 10.1 inches of precipitation (NOAA 1991 to 2020 normals). Dry summers make dead wood; winter storms bring it down.

When and how do you schedule it?

Hazard and fire-clearance pruning can be done in any season. Shaping and structural work on deciduous trees waits for late winter. Lemmon Valley is about 41 miles from our Carson City yard, about 48 minutes without traffic, so we like to see every tree on the property at the one estimate visit.