Sawmill revival aims to reduce wildfire risk in Sierra Nevada — Sierra Nevada, Nevada

SIERRA NEVADA, Nevada — CARSON CITY, Nev. (KOLO) – A Carson City-based company is turning forgotten logs into local lumber as part of an effort to manage forest land and reduce wildfire risk in the Sierra Nevada.

Wildfire Details

Evacuations and firefighting response

Tahoe Forest Products rebooted a sawmill with the goal of providing preventative measures that are both active and reactive to wildfires.

For more than a century, sawmills across the Sierra Nevada operated, but 90% went out of business during the timber wars of the 1990s.

Tahoe Forest Products is now the first significant sawmill in the region in several decades.

The company recently secured $50 million in USDA-backed loans to scale up operations. “You need sawmills in order to manage the forest.

And if you don’t manage the forest, it’ll burn.

And so Tahoe Forest Products started to attempt to be a market-oriented solution to completely overstocked, unhealthy forests,” said Kevin Leary, board chairman for Tahoe Forest Products.

The mill and Tahoe Forest Products’ operations support forest health by receiving low-value byproducts and thinned timber from hazardous fuels mitigation work.