Govt. grants help forest owners prevent fires with biochar

This innovative program is saving the government a lot of money by preventing fires instead of waiting for disasters to happen. If I were a forest owner, I would definitely apply for it. It's using private business expertise to innovate ways of mimicking natural processes to prevent large scale forest disasters.

John S
PDX OR

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/state-offices/oregon/news/innovations-in-biochar

I volunteered on a prescribed burn with our county firesafe council coordinator last week, who was working the phones to try and keep funding for this work off the chopping block. Ironically, it sounds like the only points being listened to were those relating to how wildfire prevention and mitigation work will allow for more chopping and profits for logging companies.

I've been thinking about forest cleanup, biochar, and wildfire and climate remediation lately.

In many areas, such as here in the Northeast or the Smokey Mountain area I visited recently, and I assume many more, have forests that aren't in great shape. The number of dead or overcrowded trees, plus invasives makes for a lot of biomass that can cause major fire risk.

If those forests could be cleaned up, with all that biomass made into biochar, the remaining (and additional planted, where appropriate) trees would grow better, be healthier, and sequester more carbon. Add in all that carbon sequestered in biochar in the soil, and the soil improvement it provides, and wow...game changing. Oh, and it'd make the forests a lot more able to deal with wildfire pressure.

It'd take a lot of labor. And labor takes money. But in terms for bang for the buck, I think it'd stack up to an awful lot of other climate remediation ideas, with a LOT of added benefits.

I agree Mike, that it would take labor and money, especially at the beginning.  In nature, those small wildfires would have been occurring at regular intervals, killing a lot of bushes, weeds and smaller trees, and naturally turning them into biochar.   Older, larger trees harbor more wildlife, sequester more carbon, and have more natural resistance to fires.  If we start with this program, not only will the additional moisture be held in the ground with the biochar, but also the smaller plants would be removed often and the larger. older trees would live a long time.   The frequency with which it is done could be decreased as the older trees became more fire resistant.  In some of our forests out here, it's even hard to walk through the forest because it is so densely overgrown with underbrush.

John S
PDX OR

Is there any way that people can still get help with this? Who can I call or email? I tried to get Firewise USA on the phone last week, but no reply yet. I live in one of the counties mentioned. The article was dated 2019, and it seems like funding for anything other than military stuff is being slashed.

Another question, can the kilns be built easily or moved around? I've only done small scale, burn pile type biochar projects, so this is interesting stuff for me.

I would look up Kelpie Wilson and Wilson Biochar. She has a blog too, that talks about some of these things.  She was recently talking about similar programs, so I would think it's still possible.
John S
PDX OR

John Suavecito wrote:I would look up Kelpie Wilson and Wilson Biochar. She has a blog too, that talks about some of these things.  She was recently talking about similar programs, so I would think it's still possible.
John S
PDX OR

If I recall correctly, her company builds and sells a kiln that's designed to be transported to the burn site in pieces and assembled for the burns.

Yes, and she was contracted with this program, so she should know about it.
John S
PDX OR

Thank you, I'll get on it soon....

Our Wild Rivers Permaculture Guild has gone in on a Ring of Fire kiln through Kelpie Wilson. It has deconstructable steel panels making it moveable with a station wagon or larger.