The Local Lens – Wildfire Doesn’t Respect Property Lines
August 26, 2026 | Member Submitted
Written by Tom Millhoff
We longtime locals have watched our wildfire reality change—from distant risk to smoky summers, insurance non-renewals and increasingly frequent hot, dry, windy Red Flag Warning days. The recent Reno fires and Public Safety Power Outages are a useful reminder: here in Incline Village and Crystal Bay, we are living with fire.
Choking smoke from the 2020 Caldor and Dixie fires clouded sparked my motivation. Since then, our Upper Tyner neighborhood – the epitome of the wildland-urban interface, worked with the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District (NLTFPD) and the Tahoe Resource Conservation District (TRCD) to become Incline’s first Firewise USA AND Fire Adapted Community. We’ve become safer, more resilient and insurable… even more neighborly.
Our NLTFPD has earned the highest possible insurance rating, and is doing extraordinary work to reduce wildfire risk on public lands surrounding and within our neighborhoods. As I write this, Forester Jason Furmaniak’s aptly named “Worm,” a remote-controlled masticating machine, is munching through manzanita below my house, helping create a 132-foot mosaic of healthier forest and defensible space around Incline’s “Halo” neighborhoods above Mt. Rose Highway. But even the top-rated fire district in the basin can’t do it all.
Wind-driven fires such as the Hawk, Bug, Davis and Caldor fires can throw burning embers a mile or more ahead of the flames. Those embers can jump roads, fire lines and fuels-reduction projects and land directly in our yards. Wildfire resilience is a team sport – we win together.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: wildfire doesn’t respect property lines. Our individual decisions affect our neighbors. The greatest ignition threat to your home is on your own property; the largest fuel source threatening you may be the house next door. The forest may bring wildfire to Incline, but we residents can help determine whether it becomes a house-to-house neighborhood fire. Working together, we can make our communities safer, and our homes more insurable. Fortunately, you can make meaningful progress without a major landscaping project or a huge check.
Start with one easy step: create an Ember-Resistant Zone immediately around your home. Remove needles, leaves, wood mulch and other combustible material where wind-blown embers are most likely to collect. It’s inexpensive, it’s effective, and we’re in peak fire season, so there’s no better time than this weekend.
Ready for step two? Visit the Living With Fire–Tahoe website for practical guidance on home hardening and defensible space. Better yet, call NLTFPD and schedule a free Defensible Space Inspection. Fuels Mitigation Specialist Ryan Dominguez and his inspection team understand our local wildfire ignition and spread risks better than anyone. Why wouldn’t we welcome expert advice to protect our homes and neighborhoods?
No single homeowner can make Incline fire adapted. No fire district can do it for us. But if each of us takes one or two meaningful steps—and encourages the neighbor next door to do the same—the effect multiplies from home, to street, to neighborhood, to community.
That’s how we learn to live with fire. That’s how we protect one another. And that’s how Incline Village & Crystal Bay become a Fire Adapted Community.
About the Author
Tom Millhoff has lived in Upper Tyner since the last millennium. He and the Incline High School Wildfire Ambassador team support development of local Fire Adapted Communities.
