New live map tracks prescribed fires in the Tahoe basin
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE – Take a quick hike in the Tahoe region and it's easy to see conditions are ripe for a fire.
A group of people are doing everything in their power to avoid one.
"The Tahoe basin is pretty overstocked and very vulnerable to insects, disease, and certainly catastrophic wildfire," Victoria Ortiz said.
Ortiz is part of the Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team, a collection of organizations – including the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency – that work to reduce fire fuels and prepare communities for a wildfire.
"[W]e do that by implementing fuel reduction projects and by trying to engage the community by becoming fire adaptive and being safer overall," Ortiz said.
Martin Goldberg, a fire captain with Lake Valley Fire Protection, is another member of the team. He says those mitigation projects can be big and labor-intensive.
"If you're one of our hand crews, you're out cutting trees all day long," Goldberg said.
A new tool on the team's website aims to keep the community up-to-date on what they're doing: the Lake Tahoe Basin Prescribed Fire and Project Map.
The map lists each project, what they're doing, and how long it should last.
"It's the ability to communicate that's so important to the public," Goldberg said.
To date, the Fire and Fuels Team has treated almost 95,000 acres – and, for the most part, the projects won't stop because it's a 'round the clock effort to keep Tahoe stunning and safe.
"Geographically, we're really unique because we're two states, five counties [and] one city," Ortiz said. "It's a huge collaborative effort."
The team also lists other useful maps on its website, including a real-time air quality map and the wildfire camera motoring system Alert Wildfire.