Several hundred acres of land on Mt. Como in Douglas County are scheduled to burn today, but local land managers say the smoke is not cause for alarm. The burn will be controlled as part of a project to rejuvenate habitat for mule-deer and sage grouse.
Through the week, fire managers for the Bureau of Land Management will be scorching checkered patterns in the mountain. In the end, blackened land will total 400 acres if all goes as planned, said Fire Ecologist Tim Roide.
"It's a project originally developed for habitat development but it is also for fuels management," he said. "Following the burn, the area will be reseeded."
Foliage on the mountain is typical for the Pine Nut Mountains of the eastern Carson Valley; mostly pinon pine and sagebrush.
Prescribed fires that raged out of control earlier this summer in Los Alamos, N.M. have caused extra concern by the agency.
"We've always been pretty conservative in this district," Roide said. "It might actually be hard to get the fire started with the conditions we have now.
"Every time there's an escape (by a fire), we get a few more pages of rules."
Roide added that in his experience, a 400-acre fire is fairly large. That is why it will be done in small sections over several days. No structures are located near the burn site.
The BLM is only planning one other burn this fall in an urban area near Turtle Rock. A total of 34 acres near several structures are slated to be torched between Markleeville and Woodfords.
Roide said today's burn might be postponed if weather, fuel or smoke dispersion conditions are not within limits.
