After The Fire: Restoring Vegetation in the Gold Ranch Burn Area
In the aftermath of the 2024 Gold Ranch Fire, One Truckee River has been working alongside our partners to restore and stabilize the burn areas along the Truckee River – reducing the risk of erosion and sedimentation. Today, we’re excited to announce the extension of this project, with funding approved for Phase II! With much appreciation to the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection and a private landowner’s matching contributions, we’ll have the resources needed to continue and expand our restoration work.
In August 2024, the Gold Ranch Fire burned for over a mile along both banks of the Truckee River, consuming about 650 acres of steep, adjacent forest and scrub lands. So, to prevent runoff, erosion, and impacts to downstream water quality, One Truckee River has been working alongside our partners to restore and stabilize the burn areas along the Truckee River.
Since the fire, we’ve teamed up with the Truckee Meadows Water Authority, Nevada Division of Forestry, Nevada Division of Wildlife, Carson-Truckee Water Conservation District, Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP), Resource Concepts, Inc., and property owners to repair the Truckee Riverbank.
Our focus? The most impacted areas, located on steep land owned by the Truckee Meadows Water Authority and a private landowner. Here, we’ve already fallen and managed hazardous trees along the Truckee River corridor and steep hillslopes - and put these fallen trees to good use, laying them across slopes to reduce water movement and stabilize soil. We’ve hydro-mulched the steepest slopes adjacent to the river. Finally, we’ve seeded a large portion of the burn area -hand-seeding the 30 acres on steep hillslopes and using a helicopter to seed the remaining 600+ acres in the Gold Ranch Fire burn area. And that’s only the beginning
Phase II: Establishing a Native Plant Community
With the grant we’ve received from NDEP for Phase II of the Gold Ranch Fire Restoration Project, we will continue to remove dead trees, placing woody debris (collected from the burn area) to create sediment catchments and stable habitat for revegetation. We’ll also install biodegradable fiber rolls in select hillslope areas. In doing so, we’ll work to create 13,500 square feet of microhabitat and stabilize 4,500 square feet of eroded sloped landscape.
After stabilizing the slopeside, we’ll shift our focus to supporting the establishment of slope-stabilizing native plant communities in the burn area. To do this, we’ll hand-plant 500 tree seedlings, including Mountain Mahogany, Jeffrey Pine, and Ponderosa Pine along the steep hillside. Our planting sites will be carefully selected based on microtopography to maximize the success of our efforts. We’ll also seed the burned and eroded landscape with a native seed mix. Finally, we’ll plant willow stakes in sparsely vegetated areas in the riparian zone and manually remove invasive weeds like Canada Thistle.
Why Our Work is Important
Slopes burned by wildfires are especially susceptible to erosion, landslides, and debris flows. In a healthy landscape, deep tree roots and shallower roots from other vegetation work together to form cohesive soil that’s resistant to erosion and landslides. After a fire, the loss of vegetation allows precipitation to land directly on the bare soil surface, increasing the movement of sediment. Additionally, the holes left by burnt roots increase landslide risk and the presence of wildfire ash changes the soil makeup.
Sediment is “solid material transported and deposited by water, ice, and wind.” It affects the availability of nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen in aquatic ecosystems – where it changes the amount and type of sediment in a river. This impacts the nutrients available to organisms, shapes the chemical makeup of the aquatic environment, and can make water dark and murky. In both urban and rural environments, when sediment flows into a river, it can bring pesticides, toxins, and other chemicals along with it.
All of this has consequences for the native plants and animals that call the Truckee River home, as well as water quality for people like us, living downstream from a burn area. If soils are destabilized and erosion takes place, if left alone, it can take thousands of years for an area to once again provide the same level of ecosystem function.
Protecting the Truckee River & Supporting Our Community
To prevent these negative outcomes of fire and protect the water quality of the Truckee River, projects like the Gold Ranch Fire Restoration Project are essential. After all, the Truckee River provides 85% of our drinking water here in the Truckee Meadows, supporting 400,000+ people and 7,000+ businesses. It’s home to a vibrant ecosystem of plants and animals and is critical to the survival of the endangered Cui-ui Lakesucker and the threatened Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. Just as significantly, it provides irreplaceable recreational opportunities for our community - including hiking, swimming, paddling, biking, fishing, camping, wildlife viewing, and more.
Restoring fire-damaged areas doesn’t just protect our natural world, but helps to mitigate the fire risk our cities face. After an area burns, invasive species like cheatgrass often recover more quickly than native species and out-compete native shrubs. They produce many seeds that survive fire and germinate in the fall, while other species don’t have the opportunity to establish themselves until springtime. Unfortunately, an area overgrown with cheatgrass is highly susceptible to fire, increasing the likelihood of future damaging fires. By working to re-establish native plant communities after a fire, we’re helping keep our community safe AND our river healthy.
What’s next for the Gold Ranch Fire burn area?
We’re excited about the progress we’ve made stabilizing and restoring the area burned by the Gold Ranch Fire and look forward to continuing our efforts! In our first phase of work, we focused on preventing erosion, reducing sediment transport, and mitigating impacts to the Truckee River’s water quality. In Phase II, we’ll continue to work towards these same goals while creating microhabitats, planting trees, and reestablishing native plant communities.
Wildfires are a natural feature of our Great Basin ecosystem, where low severity fire is a necessary process that reduces fire loads, decreases plant competition, and cycles nutrients. However, after a larger fire, especially a fire that impacts an ecosystem humans and wildlife depend on, post-wildlife rehabilitation is key. By stabilizing soils, planting desirable native plants, and preventing invasive species from taking root, we can mitigate the environmental impacts of fire and create a more resilient natural environment and healthier Truckee River for generations to come.