INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District has implemented Fire Aside’s Defensible Space Evaluation software as part of an expanded commitment to improve residents’ wildfire resilience, funded by Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation.

Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation is a nonprofit that is dedicated to supporting the Tahoe region, and its Tahoe Fire Safe Initiative was created to fund fire prevention strategies in the Tahoe Basin, focusing on people and property. 

“Fire prevention and safety remains one of the Community Foundation’s top priorities,” said the Community Foundation’s CEO Claudia Andersen. “The Fire Aside software directly addresses the mission of our Tahoe Fire Safe Initiative and is an important way for us to invest in the safety of our community now and into the future.”

Fire Aside’s Defensible Space Evaluation software replaces a previous manual process of forms and checklists with an interactive and easy to use product. Residents are empowered with clear, actionable information that is specific to their property, including photos of vulnerable items and associated risk levels so they can prioritize costs while getting useful education along the way. Fire agencies can dramatically increase the velocity of evaluations and efficiency, report on resident actions taken, inform compliance for grants while gathering actual structural and vegetation data at the ground level to target areas of highest risk and allocate resources efficiently and with impact.

North Lake Tahoe Fire Chief Ryan Sommers shared, “By using Fire Aside DSI software, we can visit more homes, offer more thorough action items to residents and therefore dramatically increase the number of fire resistant homes in the community. We are so grateful to our partners at Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation for their commitment to build a more wildfire resilient community.”

North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District plans to ramp up home hardening evaluations this summer. To sign up for a no-cost consultation on home hardening and defensible space, visit https://www.nltfpd.org/defensible-space.