Wildland fire awareness week begins

The Genoa Fire Safe Chapter and Genoa Volunteer Fire Department is kicking off Wildland Fire Awareness Week with a pancake breakfast 8 a.m. - noon Saturday at the Genoa Fire Station.

A family breakfast is $5 or $15 for breakfast and a Fire Safe Chapter membership.

Genoans are inviting the Jobs Peak, Foothill, Eagle Ridge, Jacks Valley and Clear Creek chapter members to participate, according to coordinator Dan Pendleton.

Defensible space material will be available from the Nevada Fire Safe Council, Living with Fire - UNR, East Fork Fire & Paramedic Districts and Nevada Division of Forestry.

Nevada's fourth annual Wildfire Awareness Week begins at 11 a.m. Friday with a kick-off event and an ember demonstration at the Nevada Division of Forestry building at 855 Eastlake Boulevard in Washoe Valley.

Wildfire Awareness Week is designed to promote understanding and action concerning the risk associated with wildland fires. Nevada has more than 250 communities that face a wildfire threat, and 68 communities are at extreme and high risk.

This year's goal is to inform the public of the threat to their homes posed by burning embers during a wildfire.

As a wildfire approaches a community, pieces of burning material from twigs, pine cones, wood shakes from a roof, and other materials become embers and are blown by the wind or lofted high into the air and rain down.

If these embers land in something easily ignited on or near your house, the home could be in jeopardy of burning.

This is the most common reason why homes are destroyed during wildfire.

Wildfire Awareness Week continues through May 9 with a variety of special events at locations around the state, from Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences at Incline Village to Mount Charleston in Southern Nevada.

For details on Nevada Wildfire Awareness Week activities and more information about improving the ember resistance of a home, visit livingwithfire.info