The U.S. Forest Service told commissioners it has started fuels work and moved key environmental decisions that will accelerate treatments across the district.

"We started the work on the thousand foot fuel break in Shantytown" and are coordinating with Nevada Division of Forestry (NDF) and Elko County to treat both private and National Forest lands, district ranger Josh Nichols said. NDF is contacting residents about private-side defensible-space treatments and the Forest Service plans to arrange wood-permit sales onsite for residents to obtain fuel wood.

Nichols said crews also plan a West-side Jarbidge fuel break near Bear Creek, funded for NDF crews and tentatively scheduled for July depending on fire-season conditions, and additional treatments near the Jarbidge water treatment plant.

The Forest Service reported extensive fuel wood volumes available from prior treatments at Overland — "probably 4,500 acres of stuff that we've cut," Nichols said — and said it is working with Nevada Gold Mines, the National Forest Foundation and Elko County on collaborative fuel-wood banks to distribute material to local tribes and county residents. Nichols said the goal is to have crews working in August so people could be burning the wood in stoves this winter.

On regulatory tools, Nichols said the district has signed the aerial-weeds environmental assessment (EA), giving it authority to apply herbicide from the air over the district, and signed a decision on a hazardous-fuels EA that would allow mechanical treatment and prescribed fire more broadly. "That's currently being objected to by several of the environmental groups," he said, and the agency expects to work through objections over the coming month or two.

Nichols tied the hazardous-fuels work to a broader EHRM project (covering the Ruby Mountains and the south end of the East Humboldt), with a decision expected at the end of the month, and said a separate Deer Mountain decision (an area in/near Jarbidge) is also expected in July. Those decisions would expand the district's ability to use targeted grazing and chaining in addition to mechanical and prescribed-fire treatments.

Commissioners asked for clarification about contractor roles; staff said NDF and Elko County are the ones physically conducting private-side treatments where state funds are used and that contractors on site will be leveraged when appropriate.

No formal actions were taken; the briefing reported schedules, funding arrangements and the status of environmental review processes.