Defensible space and fire mitigation in Virginia City, NV

Virginia City stands at about 6,200 feet on the side of Mount Davidson. Most of its houses are more than 60 years old, they stand close together on narrow streets, and one household in four heats with wood.

At a glance

• Risk to homes higher than 99.4% of US communities, 95% of Nevada's
• About 54% of homes built before 1960
• 75% of buildings in the indirect zone: embers and house-to-house fire
• About 11 miles from our Carson City yard

What makes Virginia City's rating so high?

Two things in the Forest Service data. Wildfire likelihood here ranks higher than 99.2% of US communities, and no building is rated as minimally exposed. A quarter of the roughly 650 buildings are in the direct zone, on the edges where brush slopes meet back yards. Three quarters are in the indirect zone.

Indirect exposure in a town like this means embers landing among old buildings set close together. The median house was built in 1956 and about 76% predate 1980 (American Community Survey; about 640 residents, so approximate). What grows and collects between those houses is the part we can change.

Hand work on terraces

The streets run along the mountainside in steps, and many lots are a narrow terrace with a wall or a steep bank above and below. A track loader has no place there. The crew works with saws and hand tools and carries material to a chipper on the street.

On a typical lot that means removing dead shrubs and volunteer trees crowding the walls, cutting brush on the bank above and below the house, pruning dead wood out of old shade trees and lifting limbs off roofs and porches. On a hillside the downhill bank matters most, since fire climbs toward the house from below.

Old trees between old houses

Trees that have grown for decades in a narrow side yard have often outgrown the gap. Where one is dead or failing and there is no room to lower it, we own a crane that can lift it out in sections. See crane tree removal in Virginia City.

Healthy trees stay. The aim is to take out dead wood and separate the canopy from the buildings, not to strip the town of shade.

Woodpiles in a wood-heat town

About 26% of Virginia City households heat mainly with wood, against 1% across Nevada. The Living With Fire guide asks that woodpiles be kept out of the first 5 feet from the house. On a small terraced lot that is hard to do, and it is worth the effort: a stack against a wooden wall is where an ember becomes a house fire. Once the pile is moved, we can clear the weeds and brush around its new spot.

Snow, then a dry summer

The Virginia City weather station averages 46.4 inches of snow and 11.7 inches of total precipitation a year (NOAA 1991 to 2020 normals), more than three times Carson City's snowfall. Heavy snow breaks limbs, and what breaks in winter is dry fuel by July. A spring visit to clear storm breakage does double duty.

Mapped fires with centers within about 10 miles include the Linehan Fire of 2006 (5,863 acres), the Andrew Fire of 2004 (2,693 acres), the Washoe Drive Fire of 2011 (3,178 acres) and the Davis Fire of 2024 (5,824 acres). There are 19 such perimeter records since 1980.