In Brett Taylor’s ideal world, every person in Washoe County would have proper defensible space around their home.
But Taylor, who serves as Wildland Urban Interface Community Coordinator at Truckee Meadows Fire and Rescue (TMFR), said that’s difficult to achieve, given limited resources and public awareness.
“We can't affect that much change across the district, especially when there's a lot of people that are apathetic to the issue or just unable to fix their property,” he said. “Things grow faster than you know our small department can implement it.”
Taylor pointed to some of the free programs TMFR offers for residents, including green waste disposal and defensible space treatments. Both options are designed to lower the barriers for people to protect their property.
TMFR’s Wildland Fuels Division has about 20 - 25 different projects that are in development. These projects a
“These can be anywhere from some sort of fuel break within a community, fuels reduction under the utility lines or defensible space treatment for some amount of properties” he said. “ it's all you know just kind of dependent on the funds we’re granted”.
Taylor says it’s just a very slow and arduous process.
