Moapa Valley Progress Newspaper

Home

News

Sports

Opinion

Upcoming Events

Moapa Fire Hazard Area Gets A Trim

	By Tim Robison Moapa Valley Progress Through most of last week, the area around Salt Brush Lane and Ranch Road in Moapa got a thorough cleanup. It was not paper and trash that was picked up last week; it was the thick growth of brush in the area that was cut back and cleaned out. Ann Schreiber with the Muddy River Regional Environmental Impact Alleviation Committee (MRREIAC) applied for a grant with the Nevada Fire Safety Council and received $70,000		Nevada Conservation Corps work team and MRREIAC’s Ann Schreiber take a break from clearing brush on Salt Brush Lane in Moapa.
	to clean out the underbrush. With the grant she received for MRREIAC, Schreiber contacted the Great Basin Institute part of the federal government’s AmeriCorps program.Institute sent a Nevada Conservation Corps work team to Moapa to do the work. The work team was made up of roughly twenty people who are part of the AmeriCorps program. They came with chain saws and wood chippers and worked for the week cleaning out the thick growth of brush in the neighborhood. In one area they found a long forgotten trailer and a car hidden in the overgrown brush that the property owner never knew about. “These kids have been working real hard here,” Schreiber said. “They have been here all week and I can’t believe the difference they have made. They start with what looks like a wall of brush. They start cutting and in a few hours it’s all cleared out.”
	The brush along Salt Brush Lane in Moapa presented a formatible work project for the Nevada Conservation Corp work team. They attacked the problem with chain saws and wood chippers.		Schreiber explained that the smaller branches get run through a wood chipper, the larger logs are laid out at the side of the road to be used as firewood for anyone who comes along. The goal is to trim the mesquite and other native trees and to cut out the tamarisk and treat the stumps so they do not grow back. “This brush grows and becomes a real fire hazard,” Schreiber said. “When the dry weather comes the smallest spark can catch this on fire and if it gets started it could burn down the whole neighborhood.”
	Schreiber went on to explain that it is through grants like the one from the Fire Safety Council and the work of citizens in the area that keep the fire danger at a minimum.