Deadline near for panel’s Tahoe fire report
Jeff DeLong (JDELONG@RGJ.COM)
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
March 2, 2008

Eight months after flames roared through a Lake Tahoe community, destroying 254 homes, a special panel established to avoid future disasters is nearing its deadline. By March 21, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons expect a report on how to avoid a repeat of last June’s Angora Fire. This week, the California-Nevada Tahoe Basin Fire Commission is scheduled to sort through some 120 different recommendations crafted to achieve that goal.

Some participants in the effort say it represents a long-needed shift in direction to protect life and property at the famous alpine lake. Conservationists worry a sensitive environment could be put at risk in a rush to respond to issues associated with last summer’s blaze.

Some changes have already occurred. At the urging of Tahoe’s fire districts, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency last November altered regulations to increase the size of trees that can be cut without a permit to reduce fire danger on private property from 6 inches to 14 inches in diameter. TRPA, which after the fire faced a barrage of criticism from those who said its policies contributed to Lake Tahoe’s most destructive wildfire, is proposing other changes as well.

One key proposal would require that pine needles — useful on the ground to control erosion — be cleared from a ring of 5 to 30 feet around homes each spring to reduce fire danger during the summer. That plan represents a compromise in sometimes competing goals to prevent wildfire and protect Lake Tahoe from sediment pollution. “That’s a great step. That was one of our greatest concerns,” said Mike Brown, chief of the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District.

Coming changes stem from “exhaustive efforts” over the months since the Angora Fire, Brown said. Unfortunately, he said it took the long-feared disaster for that effort to gain needed momentum. “These are issues the fire services have been trying to get to the forefront for years,” Brown said. “This was not on everybody’s minds before but now it is.”

Long-feared fire
The Angora Fire, sparked by an abandoned and illegal campfire, erupted on a windy Sunday afternoon on June 24. The fire raced through an overgrown forest along Angora Creek and then burned into residential areas outside South Lake Tahoe, with flames leaping house to house until 254 homes were reduced to smoking rubble.

Fire danger has always been high at Lake Tahoe and to some degree, always will be, experts said. But the disaster made clear to many the need for substantial change. That was the goal of the two governors, who on July 25 formed the 23-member Tahoe Basin Fire Commission to recommend strategies to avoid future conflagrations. A marathon of lengthy meetings resulted in 120 findings and
recommendations the panel is now preparing to consolidate, discard or approve.

Samples of the recommendations:

• Thinning Tahoe’s overgrown forests is critical and projects to accomplish that task must include all sizes of trees. An economic environment must be created that enables contractors to compete and plan for years of work in the woods.
• A successful “biomass” industry must be established to make use of trees and other woody material removed from Tahoe’s forests. Tax credits to help make a biomass industry profitable are needed. Biomass processing facilities should be established at each end of the Tahoe Basin.
• Studies should be undertaken to determine if the number of days when controlled burning is allowed at Tahoe can be increased. Areas treated with prescribed fire are less likely to burn intensely during a wildfire.
• Permanent state funding should be established to reduce dependence on federal grants to treat fire fuels on state land. A permanent or seasonal inmate camp should be established to provide more labor for fuels treatment work.
• Programs should be accelerated to reduce a “huge backlog” of private parcels that Tahoe’s fire districts have been unable to inspect for fire danger.

Proposals costly
The proposals come large and small. Some would be easy to implement. Others would be exceedingly complex. One idea discussed last December would be to alter the bistate compact that created the TRPA to make wildfire prevention the agency’s top priority. Such an action would require approval by both states’ legislatures and governors, Congress and the president. Money is another matter.

“One of the real difficulties will be funding,” said John Singlaub, TRPA’s executive director. With both Nevada and California now dealing with a sour economy and substantial funding shortages, financing costly efforts to reduce fire danger at Lake Tahoe could prove a major challenge, Singlaub said.

Allen Biaggi, Nevada’s director of Conservation and Natural Resources and a member of the fire commission, agreed. “Funding is obviously a big deal because this is very expensive,” he said. Biaggi said one of the most important tasks to reduce fire danger around the lake will be to thin forests in stream areas like Angora Creek, where last June’s fire exploded into its highest intensity. “Anything we can do with that is very good,” Biaggi said.

Conservationists concerned
Significant thinning activity within stream areas, while needed, is an activity that should be considered most carefully, said Michael Donahoe of the Tahoe chapter of the Sierra Club. Donahoe and other environmentalists are concerned the political climate in the wake of the Angora Fire could result in hurried changes that could put Tahoe’s environment at risk.

“There could be a significant danger,” Donahoe said. “This is Tahoe and we’ve invested over a billion dollars in saving this lake. Let’s not jeopardize this investment by making it an either-or.”

Donahoe said he’s concerned the fire commission is placing too great an emphasis on thinning remote areas of the forest — activity that could require construction of damaging roads on steep terrain — when more emphasis should be placed on requiring fire-resistent building materials for homes and encouraging defensible space around those homes. “I don’t think we need to sacrifice the environment to keep us safe,” Donahoe said.

But Sig Rogich, the Las Vegas businessman and GOP power broker tapped by Gov. Gibbons as the co-chair of the fire commission, said it’s time for a common-sense approach to protecting Tahoe as well as its residents. “It’s been a one-way street for the last 30 years or so,” Rogich said. “I think this is way overdue.” Rogich said he’s confident coming changes will prove positive in the long run. “I think at the end of the day, it will be beneficial for Lake Tahoe and its residents,” Rogich said.

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