Nevada County’s Office of Emergency Services on Thursday presented a multi-pronged 2025 plan to prepare residents and reduce wildfire risk, emphasizing removal of excess biomass at the site and landscape scales and a pilot to turn removed material into biochar.

Interim Emergency Services Director Alex Keeble Tull told the Board of Supervisors that a “road map to resilience” will guide funding and projects countywide, allowing communities to access FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and Community Wildfire Defense Grant dollars and to coordinate with federal land managers. “The best way to reduce wildfire risk is to remove excess biomass, Not rearrange, remove,” Keeble Tull said in his presentation.

Why it matters: County staff said more than 92% of Nevada County residents live in high fire hazard severity zones, so fuel-reduction and evacuation work will affect most residents and remain central to several ongoing grant applications and landscape projects.

What the plan contains: Keeble Tull outlined projects at three scales:
- Individual: defensible-space planning under a Bridal Phase 1 grant covering roughly 1,500 residents in the Woodpecker Ravine area, plus green‑waste drop‑offs and year‑round preparedness information and outreach.
- Community: a USFS-funded “critical evacuation route and hazardous vegetation removal” program that will accept proposals from Firewise communities, HOAs and road associations for priority treatment along private roads.
- Landscape: coordinated work on federal and state lands, including shaded fuel breaks and maintenance on the Ponderosa and Woodpecker project areas in partnership with Tahoe National Forest and through Good Neighbor Agreement arrangements.

Biomass options and costs: The presentation moved from planning to the economics of removing materials created by fuels-reduction work. Keeble Tull described three scaled options discussed with supervisors:
- Year‑round community green‑waste collection: an estimated $850,000 annually to collect roughly 23,100 tons of material per year (staff noted this would be about four times the current 2025 programming budget).
- Extending the county biomass pilot (La Barre Meadows): doubling the current pilot was estimated at about $660,000 annually and could process roughly 10,000 tons of material.
- Building a biomass energy facility: estimated lead time of more than five years and capital cost upward of $15,000,000; a facility of the size discussed would be expected to process about 30,000 tons per year and generate roughly 5 megawatts.

Keeble Tull stressed tradeoffs: hauling material long distances is expensive and produces emissions; local treatment or value‑added products (biochar) can reduce transport costs and produce a useful soil amendment. He described the La Barre Meadows pilot as combining an air‑curtain incinerator/carbonizer operation with local collection and on‑site processing to limit truck miles and produce biochar.

Community response and board direction: During discussion, supervisors asked about scaling, partnerships with fire districts, and air‑quality permitting for incinerators. Supervisors emphasized support for Firewise communities, expressed concern about the Air Quality Management District’s ability to defend broadcast and permitted burning, and pressed staff to pursue both grant funding and partnerships — including investigating a county‑level extension of the biomass pilot — while continuing to coordinate with cities exploring separate facilities.

What’s next: Staff said several projects and programs described in the presentation are already funded in part (e.g., specific defensible‑space grants and the La Barre pilot). Staff were asked to return with costed program options, funding recommendations and timelines; supervisors also asked that additional outreach materials explain the limits of county authority and the interaction with air‑quality rules and federal partners.