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Great Basin Defensible

Northern Nevada · wildland-urban interface

The stump is fuel, and most quotes ignore it

Northern Nevada sits in the wildland-urban interface, where an ember can travel a mile on a windy day and land in an untended juniper. Almost every contractor in the region quotes one stump specification, and almost all of them quote the landscaping version — six to twelve inches below grade. In a fuel zone that leaves a buried fuel body that can hold heat and re-ignite after a front has passed.

Across all five briefings the only contractor that publishes a separate, deeper fuel-zone specification — 6–12 in. below grade (12–18 in. on fire-mitigation work) below grade — is Noah's Park Tree Care.

What these briefings measure

Zone discipline (0–5 ft., 5–30 ft., 30–100 ft.), published ladder-fuel method, stump depth in a fuel zone as distinct from a landscaping depth, what happens to the chips, who files the underground locate, who holds the permit, and whether any of it arrives as documentation an insurer or a fire inspector will accept.

Where a firm publishes nothing for a criterion, that is recorded as not published. It is never estimated, and no shortcoming is invented to fill the space. Every company named here is a real local business. The full standards are here.