Smartest Forest Fund

Partners: U.S. Forest Service, California Tahoe Conservancy, Nevada Department of Forestry, Tahoe Forest & Fuels Team, Tahoe Central Sierra Initiative

Fundraising Goal: $5,000,000

Both California and Nevada have experienced record-breaking wildfires in recent years. In 2021, the 222,000-acre Caldor Fire came within miles of destroying homes, businesses and natural resources right here in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

The threat of catastrophic wildfire is increasing throughout the West in part because of unhealthy, overly-dense forests and pervasive tree mortality. In the Tahoe Basin alone, the number of burn piles and dead and dying trees have skyrocketed into the hundreds-of-thousands, with an estimated 692,000 tree deaths since 2010. In addition, forest density has increased so substantially over the past several decades that trees in the Basin are now competing for precious resources, including water. 

For all of these reasons, the Tahoe Fund has identified forest health as our number one priority. 

In 2019, we launched the Smartest Forest Fund, a sub-fund of our Environmental Venture Trust, to use philanthropy to drive innovation through seed funding. With this Fund, we are investing in promising new ideas and pilot projects. Some will work; some may not. But supporting them is critical to finding and scaling meaningful solutions.

Download our Smartest Forest Fund brochure.

 

Smartest Forest Fund from Tahoe Fund on Vimeo.

Smartest Forest Fund Projects

Working alongside our public agency partners and donors, we plan to make Tahoe’s forest the smartest forest on the planet. To date, the Smartest Forest Fund has supported the following projects.

Innovation & Technology

Fire Smart Community Pilots – The Tahoe Fund helped launch the Fire Smart Community Pilots in spring 2025 to create the most fire-ready neighborhoods on the planet — starting right here in Lake Tahoe. These pilots bring together homeowners, fire districts and cutting-edge technology in a way that’s never been done before to quickly and cost-effectively identify and implement mitigations that will have the greatest impact on protecting people and property in the wildland urban interface. Read the Playbook and learn more here.

Tahoe-Truckee BurnBot Pilot – We helped bring BurnBot’s remotely-operated mastication and prescribed fire tools to the region to increase the pace and scale of forest restoration. These innovative technologies allow crews to complete fuels reduction work more safely and in a fraction of the time, with less impact to the environment. During phase one of the pilot, crews completed a 22-acre treatment in three days rather than three weeks.

The Tahoe-Truckee BurnBot Pilot pilot is the result of a collaborative effort among multiple partners and across sectors. It was co-funded by the Tahoe Fund, Martis Fund, Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation and Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, and co-sponsored by the Tahoe Fire & Fuels Team, North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District, Tahoe Resource Conservation District, and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.  To learn more about BurnBot, please visit www.burnbot.com.

Land Tender – We awarded a grant to Vibrant Planet for the Tahoe portion of Land Tender, a software system that utilizes high-definition imaging and artificial intelligence to reduce the time it takes to plan forest treatment projects from years to months. Land Tender maps landscapes with great specificity, and in turn, helps land managers and communities create and prioritize projects based on desired outcomes. The Tahoe Fund’s early investment in Land Tender helped secure over $500,000 in state funding for this effort.

California Forest Observatory – We provided funding alongside the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for Salo Sciences’ efforts to build the California Forest Observatory, an aggregated data platform that maps wildfire risk in real-time, reduces planning time for forest restoration projects, and supports emergency operations.

Acoustic Owl Monitoring – The current process for detecting endangered owls in the forest takes about two years and significantly lengthens the approval time for forest health projects. We awarded a grant to the U.S. Forest Service to develop a more effective protocol that combines acoustic monitoring and automated devices that will cut detection time in half.

Workforce & Education

Caldor Forest Treatment Study – Many believe that forest thinning treatments completed in Tahoe years ago helped stop the Caldor Fire from entering the Basin. We funded a study to figure out whether this is true, and if so, what worked and what could have been done better. We hope the findings will help guide land managers toward effective treatment methods, and also encourage lawmakers and regulators to continue to fund and authorize such treatments.

FireUp – The Tahoe Fund awarded a grant to help launch FireUp, a new online platform that connects the forestry and fire workforce with employers, and provides that workforce with mental health and wellness resources. FireUp’s goal is to connect 1 million fire and forestry employees to 100,000+ employers, 10,000+ coaches, and 1,000+ well-being services by 2030.

Lake Tahoe Community College (LTCC) Scholarships & Administrator – For the third year in a row, we are offering scholarships to students in LTCC’s Forestry and Fire Academy programs. We also provided a private match to hire an administrator to oversee student success in both.

Social Science Workshop for the Tahoe Fire & Fuels Team – Thanks to support from NV Energy, we sponsored a workshop, featuring Forest Service social scientist Dr. Sarah McCaffery, to help over 75 fire professionals learn how to more effectively engage with the community around wildfire issues.

Washoe Tribe Firefighter Training – We helped fund a wildland firefighter training led by the Washoe Tribe of California & Nevada focused on cultural knowledge and practices. This laid the groundwork for forming Washoe fire crews that can help increase the region’s capacity for fuels reduction and intentional fire, while reconnecting with ancestral practices and homelands.

Whitebark Pine Research Initiative – The Tahoe Fund and the Nevada Division of State Lands provided matching funds for a study of the rapidly dying Whitebark Pine in the Tahoe Basin to help inform land management and wildfire prevention practices.

Wood Utilization

Carson City & Loyalton Biomass Facilities – The Tahoe Fund is supporting the Nevada Division of Forestry’s efforts to reopen the Carson City biomass facility. We’re also working with private investors to get the Loyalton biomass facility back up and running. Once operational, these sites will create new and badly needed offtake opportunities for excess timber in the Basin.

Log Resource Study – We commissioned a study of the 75-mile radius around the Loyalton Biomass Facility to show investors that new wood utilization facilities near Tahoe would have access to enough material to be profitable. Investors have since cited this study in their decisions to move forward with these types of projects.

National Forest Foundation Liberty Utilities Corridor Project – We closed a funding gap on a 1,250-acre fuels reduction project in the Tahoe Basin, allowing 2,300 tons of woody biomass to be taken to a cogeneration plant and turned into electricity, instead of being piled and left on the forest floor.

Northstar Community Services District Biomass-to-Heat Plants – A joint grant with Vail Resorts—made possible by dollar donations from guests—to help build two biomass plants that will provide heat to the Village at Northstar Ski Resort using wood waste from nearby forest health treatments. These plants will replace six natural-gas-fired boilers and reduce emissions.

Tahoe Forest Products Sawmill in Carson City, NV – We brought together a private funder and the Washoe Tribe of California and Nevada to build the first new sawmill in decades within ten miles of the Tahoe Basin. The sawmill will create nearly 100 jobs, and seek to hire as many tribal members as possible. Once it’s fully built out and operational in 2026, the sawmill will process 40-50 million board feet of lumber per year. Notably, the need for biomass offtake sites is so great that the sawmill regularly fields inquiries from organizations seeking responsible destinations for felled timber, including from nearby forest fires like Caldor.

Wood Utilization Groups – The Tahoe Fund facilitated two wood utilization working groups: one for Senator Cortez Masto, and the other for the California Tahoe Conservancy and Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The goal is to identify funding, policy and regulatory needs, and to generate support for more wood utilization facilities.

Community Preparedness & Advocacy 

California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force – The Tahoe Fund served as the fiscal sponsor of the Governor’s quarterly Task Force meeting in Tahoe, which drew over 450 attendees, plus high-ranking officials, to examine forest health and wildfire through a bi-state lens.

Community Hardening & Resident Preparedness – We awarded a grant to the Tahoe Resource Conservation District (RCD) to revamp its community hardening and preparedness programs. The goal is to better identify which residents and neighborhoods need assistance and what they need it for. This will allow the Tahoe RCD to tailor its programs to specific, on-the-ground needs, with an emphasis on providing support to our most vulnerable populations.

Expediting Hazardous Fuels Reduction in South Shore – We helped purchase equipment that will allow South Shore fire districts and residents to increase the pace and scale of hazardous fuels removal in their neighborhoods by 2-3 times, while also reducing costs.

Glenbrook Undergrounding – We helped fund the effort to underground power lines in Glenbrook. The goal is to reduce fire-starts in the Basin and create a model for other local communities looking to do similar work.

Mobile Ranger Station – We helped the U.S. Forest Service create a mobile ranger station to take to campsites, events and other popular destinations to educate people on wildfire safety and preparedness.

Download our Smartest Forest Fund brochure.