Incline Village, NV…Thinning of trees for fuels reduction and forest health started last week on approximately 355 acres of National Forest System lands above Incline Village on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. Mechanical cut-to-length (CTL) tree removal will take place on National Forest urban lots and in areas adjacent to communities over the next several months and some areas will be closed for public safety.

CTL thinning involves using a harvester to cut the tree down, remove the limbs and cut the tree into sections in the cutting area. This type of mechanical operation requires closure of the project area during operations due to the hazards posed by heavy equipment and falling trees. The Forest Service will issue a forest order closing the project area (unit 1) located on the east side of Mt. Rose Highway 431 south of Tahoe Meadows, to pedestrians from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. daily for the next several months. Hazards may be present even when operations have ceased for the day and the closure is not in effect. The Forest Service will post closure signs in the area and the forest order will be posted at http://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/ltbmu/ForestOrders when it becomes available.

The forest thinning is part of the Incline Hazardous Fuels Reduction and Healthy Forest Restoration Project, which will treat nearly 4,000 acres on North Shore of Lake Tahoe to reduce the risk of severe wildfire, improve forest health, and provide defensible space to neighboring communities.

In addition to temporary closures of recreational areas, other short-term impacts from fuels reduction projects include changes to the appearance of basin forests. Treated areas look disturbed at first, but recover visually within a few years. Overall benefits to forests in treated areas include reducing fuel for wildfires and providing the remaining trees with less competition for resources such as water, sunlight and nutrients, which allow the trees to grow larger and become more resistant to drought, insects and disease.

For more information about the project, visit http://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/ltbmu/InclineFuelsProject.