Wildfire mitigation at Clear Creek Tahoe

The Clear creek community

Clear Creek Tahoe (CCT) is a private residential and 18-hole golf course community located on the east side of the Sierra between Lake Tahoe and Carson City Nevada. CCT, located in Douglas County, is comprised of 1,576 acres, 853 of which are held in conservancy, and 364 home sites. Clear Creek Tahoe is a certified Firewise Community through the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), a certification held since 2022 and successfully renewed each year, with the certifying agency determining in 2025 that it would lower the rating for CCT from high to moderate risk, as significant
achievement in a community with wildland topography.

Clear Creek Tahoe maintains a robust and multi-faceted approach to community safety and wildfire mitigation that includes strong partnerships with emergency responders and perimeter land holders, best practice community design and construction requirements for Wildland Urban Interface (WUI)
communities, and an active program of both association management and community-based involvement that focuses on fire safety and emergency planning, communication and action. From a 24/7/365 Security Team that monitors conditions and risks throughout the community and beyond to
help keep residents, guests and employees safe, to a Fire Safety Committee responsible for short- and long-term strategies and actions to mitigate wildfire risk, CCT puts a top priority on wildfire protection.

From the community’s origin, multiple features have been incorporated that help mitigate risk. Examples include:
All utilities within the community are underground.

Fire hydrants are placed at 500-foot intervals throughout the community.

Fire sprinkler systems are required for every residence and community building as a Douglas County requirement.

A pond that averages about 5 million gallons of water was incorporated into the golf course and is a source of water for fire suppression teams if needed.

Since home design and construction began in the Clear Creek Tahoe community, design and construction guidelines have included ignition-resistant exterior roofing and siding, enclosed eaves, spark arrestors on all chimneys, good emergency access/turning space at all constructed dwellings, and
defensible space around homes. Subsequently, in 2023, Douglas County and East Fork Fire Protection District adopted the 2021 International Wildland Urban Interface Code (WUI). In addition to embracing the WUI best practices, in order to fully and formally align the CCT Design Guidelines with the WUI code, in early 2025 Clear Creek Tahoe updated its Design Guidelines and Approved Plant List Appendix.

An important component of WUI and being a Firewise Community is landscaping and defensible space. Now that the CCT Design Guidelines are aligned with WUI code, Design Review requires that all landscape plans or subsequent landscape change requests must meet the following requirements:

Zone 0 – Ember Resistant Zone (0’ to 5’ feet from structures/decks) – this area must be free of combustible material including mulch and vegetation. CCT now requires a non-combustible mulch to be used around the perimeter of the home, accessory structures, and decks

Zone 1 – Lean, Clean and Green Zone (Located 5’ to 30’ from structure) – the CCT requirement is to reduce flammable landscape materials by arranging discontinuous islands of vegetation. The vegetation in Zone 1 must be maintained by pruning, eliminating ladder fuels and planting with adequate vertical/horizontal spacing. Mulch may be used in Zone 1, but not in a continuous, widespread manner, and should be surrounded
by non-combustible options. New planting of conifer trees within 30 feet of any structures will not be allowed. Existing mature conifer trees can remain if the canopy is 10 feet away horizontally and vertically from the edge of a structure or roof (no tree limbs may overhang a roof) and tree/tree clusters need 18 feet between crowns.

Zone 2 – Reduced Fuel Zone/Extended Zone (Located 30+ feet from structures to personal property boundary) – the CCT requirement is to create separation between shrubs or small groups of shrubs and trees. Removal of ladder fuels and low growing vegetation, as well as thinning of small trees, is necessary in this zone. In addition, wood property fences are not permitted in the residential areas of CCT.

Within property boundaries, all owners should maintain defensible space by following the landscape rules outlined above, and also through the annual removal of flammable grasses, dead and down limbs, pine needles/heavy needle beds, pinecones (especially dense accumulations near large trees),
dead shrubs and brush, dead trees, etc. Debris, such as needles, cones and leaves that collect in gutters, roof valleys and other roof areas are to be removed, and areas under decks must also be kept clear of debris. Real property owned by the developer, the association, property with homes under construction, and property awaiting construction (non-resident owners) are all asked to comply with these requirements.

To help facilitate this community-wide responsibility, Green Waste Dumpsters are made seasonally available for use by all owners and guidelines for property clean-up have been provided. Design Review staff members quickly consult with property owners if fuel work questions arise and also offer owners information about contractors who have been used for CCT fuels work of all magnitudes, from tree limbing and removal to even full property mastication on unbuilt lots.

In addition, during construction, contractors are responsible for following all CCT fire safety rules. Two fire extinguishers and a shovel must be present on all sites and the Community Association’s Construction Compliance Administrator routinely audits this requirement and assesses construction
sites for fire safety compliance.

Clear Creek Tahoe has a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) that was approved in February 2023 by the Nevada Division of Forestry State Forester, the East Fork Fire Protection District and the CCT Community Association. This plan must be formally updated and re-approved every five years, and updates and revisions are continually being made in anticipation of a 2028 plan update.

One of the most important elements of a CWPP is facilitating ongoing collaboration among multiple entities to address CCT’s wildfire risk and promote action through planning and prioritization. Contact is maintained with each of these entities to work on pertinent training, education, planning and risk
mitigation activities.

Clear Creek Tahoe’s collaborative partners include East Fork Fire, the Nevada Division of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy, the Washoe Tribe, Nevada Energy, Douglas County, and private landowners.

Clear Creek Tahoe is located within the jurisdiction of the East Fork Fire Protection District (EFFPD). East Fork Fire is an all-risk fire and EMS service provider and is one of Nevada’s largest combined fire/emergency medical services agencies. East Fork supports more than a dozen fire stations, including five stations currently manned 24/7 by career firefighters and paramedics. Clear Creek conducts regular training exercises with East Fork on the CCT property, and also hosts other regional training exercises with fire, police and emergency management agencies.

One EFFPD 24/7 all-risk station is Station 12, located close to CCT near Highway 50/US In addition to traditional fire/EMS response, this station has been retrofitted to offer helicopter services for emergency medical response, with initial attack fire response capability coming online in early 2026.

Another location, known as Station 15, will now be jointly operated by the EFFPD and the Nevada Division of Forestry beginning in early 2026. Station 15 will house a 20-member Interagency Type 2 Crew for wildfire response and hazardous fuels work. This station is located about 0.9 miles from CCT, with access provided by the community’s southern emergency access road.

Clear Creek Tahoe’s ideal location also places it very close to other fire response jurisdictions. These agencies, which operate under mutual aid agreements and train for multi-jurisdictional response, include the Carson City Fire Department, the Tahoe-Douglas Fire Protection District, the Central Lyon County Fire Protection District, the Nevada Division of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as other nearby northern Nevada fire agencies. Some of the state and federal agencies also maintain air response capability at the Minden Airport, about 15 miles from Clear Creek.

Beginning with the creation of the Clear Creek Tahoe community, CCT has partnered with the Nevada Division of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service, the East Fork Fire Protection District (with its dedicated Wildland Fire and Fuels Program) and the Nature Conservancy to remove fire fuel loads and thin conifer and other dense vegetation both throughout the entire community and in the perimeter area -those lands owned by others that are adjacent to CCT. Establishing and maintaining these perimeter fuel breaks is a major focus of CCT and its Fire Safety Committee. In addition to funding six figure fuels work each season in conjunction with its partners, the Community Association Staff and the Committee are establishing completion and maintenance of perimeter fuels work in a multi-year plan that encircles the community – a program that will begin again as soon as it is completed, as ongoing perimeter management is a key factor in community fire mitigation.

Clear Creek Tahoe maintains a community evacuation plan for fire and critical emergency response. The primary Clear Creek Tahoe evacuation route is on the north side of the community using Golf Club Drive to reach Highway 50. All evacuations will be in coordination with the Douglas County Sheriff and, with sheriff department assistance, the evacuation to Highway 50 can be expanded to handle two lanes of traffic. In the unlikely event that this access to Highway 50, or Highway 50 itself, is compromised, an additional north side exit route down Old Clear Creek Road is available. Further, the secondary evacuation route, an emergency access road at Cutoff Trail on the south side of the community, can also be an exit route if needed.

Critical Event Communication System – The CCT Community Association is implementing state-of-the-art software from Everbridge for emergency communication with its owners, members, staff, contractors and other stakeholders across all CCT facilities. The software allows communications across multiple digital channels, including establishing communication with specified sub-groups, as well as two-way communications throughout the entire network. The second component of the system is intelligence gathering of all geographically important emergency data in alerts to CCT security management.