Tree service in Virginia City, NV

At about 6,200 feet on the side of Mount Davidson, Virginia City is the highest town we serve outside the Lake Tahoe basin. It also has the oldest median house age in our service area, a weather station that records more than three times Carson City's snowfall, and the highest wildfire rating of any community we cover.

What do houses from the 1950s and earlier mean for the trees?

Virginia City is small, about 640 residents in roughly 340 homes, so Census figures here carry wide margins. The pattern is still clear: about three out of four homes were built before 1980, more than half before 1960, and the median home dates from about 1956 (ACS 2020-2024).

Trees that grew up beside those houses have had 60 years or more to get big. They stand over roofs, sheds and retaining walls on terraced lots, along narrow streets laid out in the mining era. A tree like that usually cannot be dropped in one piece. It comes down in sections, and where a truck can set up, a crane lifts each section out over the house instead of lowering it onto the yard. See crane-assisted tree removal in Virginia City and our guide to removing a tree in a tight backyard.

How much snow does Virginia City get?

The Virginia City weather station, at 6,340 feet and a few blocks from the center of town, averages 46.4 inches of snow and 11.7 inches of precipitation a year (NOAA 1991-2020 normals). The Carson City station in the valley below averages 14.0 inches of snow. Summer afternoons average about 80 degrees, cooler than the valleys.

More than three times the valley's snowfall means more weight on limbs. Long horizontal branches and trees with two competing trunks are the ones to have looked at before winter. Read storm and snow-load breakage for what an arborist checks. The 2023 USDA map places ZIP 89440 in hardiness zone 7a.

The highest wildfire rating in our service area

The Forest Service's Wildfire Risk to Communities data rates Virginia City's risk to homes higher than 99.4% of US communities and higher than 95% of Nevada communities. A quarter of its buildings are in the direct exposure zone and the remaining three quarters are in the indirect zone. Storey County as a whole ranks higher than 98% of US counties.

Nineteen fires of 300 acres or more have been mapped with a center point within about 10 miles since 1980. Among them: Linehan in 2006 (5,863 acres), Davis in 2024 (5,824 acres), Washoe Drive in 2011 (3,178 acres) and Andrew in 2004 (2,693 acres). In a town of closely spaced old buildings, the 5 feet nearest each structure is where defensible space work starts.

One household in four heats with wood

About 26% of Virginia City households heat mainly with wood, against 1.0% for Nevada as a whole, and about 42% more use bottled gas (ACS 2020-2024). We sell firewood and wood chips. Call the office for availability and pricing.

What we do in Virginia City

• Tree removal and large tree removal, with a crane where the site allows
• Pruning, dead wooding, cabling and bracing for old trees worth keeping
• Stump grinding
• Defensible space and brush clearing
• 24-hour emergency service and storm clean-up
• Arborist consultation before you decide to remove or keep