A Nevada Division of Forestry helicopter carries seed spreader over the Tamarack Fire burn scar in southern Douglas County.
Photo by Sarah Drinkwine.
Nearly 36 tons of seeds for fire and drought resilient grasses, flowers and shrubs are being applied across more than 8,000 acres within the Tamarack Fire burn scar in southern Douglas County.
Applied by a Nevada Division of Forestry helicopter, the seed will help restore the blackened hillsides left when the fire crossed into Nevada from Alpine County in July.
“It’s important to try and get as much seeding done early before winter precipitation occurs,” said Nevada Division of Forestry Western Region Resource Management Officer Anna Higgins. “We’ve already seeded 300 acres before the winter precipitation happened in December, so we’re hopeful that will amalgamate, and we can get some more precipitation to help along what we’ve currently put down.”
The agencies’ aim is to stabilize soils and return normal hydrologic and biologic functions after wildfire.
“The goal is to have a healthy range to prevent future fire devastation,” said Higgins. “We are hopeful in our efforts and the long-term effects.”
On Wednesday, Gov. Steve Sisolak and fire officials visited southern Douglas County to discuss restoration efforts after the fire.
The Tamarack Fire was sparked by a lightning strike on July 4, 2021. It smoldered in the Sierra above Markleeville for nearly two weeks before it suddenly exploded into flame on July 16 and barreled down toward the Alpine County seat.
Firefighters were overwhelmed by the intensity of the fire that ended up burning 68,696 acres in Nevada and California and destroying multiple homes and structures.
“This fire didn’t know boundaries; you drive up and down this area and you can see it’s scarred,” said Sisolak. “This is going to go a long way to restoring it to what it was.”
Wednesday was the second time Sisolak visited the site in eight months.
The Nevada Division of Forestry and the Nevada Department of Wildlife have been working to enhance the health and resiliency of rangeland to reduce the risk of wildfires like the Tamarack.
“It does make a huge difference, because if you see the fire when it’s happening, you see the smoke and people experience that then it stops and goes away, kind of ‘out of sight out of mind,’ but it’s so important to know that a lot of work and a lot of effort goes into restoring this environment and the land after a fire and this is the first step to doing that,” said Sisolak.
As a vital part of efforts, the partnered agencies used a Nevada Division of Forestry helicopter to apply 71,400 pounds of seed of fire and drought resilient grasses, flowers and shrubs across more than 8,000 acres within the Tamarack Fire burn scar.
Fire is often a natural process in many of Nevada’s ecosystems and is necessary to maintain diversity of wildlife and plant species, however with increased drought and climate change conditions fires are becoming more frequent and damaging, officials said.
“I am a firm a believer that climate change is happening and that we need to do more to prevent that change from happening,” said Sisolak, “You can see up here, we’re getting fires more and more often. They’re becoming more common and more devastating and we need to be more proactive in terms of doing what we can ahead of time to prevent this from happening. That’s why our partnerships between the state agencies and the private agencies, Nv Energy, the tribes, etc. is so important. If we all put our resources together, we can accomplish a lot more. You have to be proactive and getting these things going ahead of time, you can’t wait for the fire to start and say ‘ok, let’s do something,’ we have to be upfront on this so that’s what we’re trying to do now.”
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