Project Statement

With wildfires in Plumas National Forest increasing, there is an urgent need to reduce forest fuels while reforesting. Removing fuels from burnt and overstocked forests can initiate a small biochar industry, providing funds and planting medium for needed seedstock. Establishing working forests using existing campsites introduces a semi-permanent intervention that offers the opportunity to collect seeds and biomass, reforest, and educate the public. Utilizing natural regeneration and drone seeding, the efforts of these camps can endure for generations, promoting resiliency, community involvement, while at the same time fostering a resilient and healthier forest ecosystem into the future.

Project Narrative

In the summer of 2021, the Dixie Fire burnt through almost 1 million acres of forest in the Northern Sierra Nevada destroying homes and livelihoods, only leaving char in its wake. But within that char, there is opportunity to grow stronger forests and communities while reducing risk of wildfire. These mountains have seen fire before and they will again, but we need to make a change so that fire does not destroy and can instead be a piece of the system.

The forest is a living, breathing entity, so in order to address the issues, it was important for us to understand it from an insider’s point-of-view. Speaking to US Forest Service rangers, community members, and the local logging industry taught us how the existing systems are disconnected and often fall short. Issues, though, are interconnected and vary according to site conditions like elevation, fire severity, accessibility, and ecosystem. For example, there aren’t enough seedlings to keep up with reforestation depending on zone and scale of fire. Our site transect, a semi-permanent intervention, revolves around an existing camp that can address issues hyper-locally.

Forest thinning is part of the culture in the mountain range, but often much of the forest goes untreated after a wildfire which only increases risk to getting engulfed again. Just as dangerous, much of the forest that hasn’t burnt is overstocked with biomass. Going out on to the hillside to collect this biomass, burnt and not, is crucial for health and it can be used in the forest industry. Logged or used to make biochar, it can be a potential source of revenue to keep the project going.

Being a mixed-conifer forest, cones can be collected and brought back to site to be processed for needed seedstock. Though, instead of using that seed to be grown into a sapling, often taking about 2 years, it can be placed into a seedpuck, a mixture of nutrients, soil, and biochar produced on site. From cone to seedpuck, the process only takes about 3 months, just in time for the next planting season.

By drone, seedpuck dispersal can happen at a high rate on the treated land. Harnessing the wet depressions of a hillside, often a clump of seed-bearing trees, an ICO reforestation pattern is possible. Making up an ICO, individual trees are influencers, clumps of them bear the seed for natural regeneration, and openings foster new growth and micro-ecotones. Achieving this pattern creates a highly variable fuel load limiting fire spread as well as a strong network helping to reintroduce a diverse ecosystem.

inviting the public only makes sense since community knowledge and skill, often taught generationally, is what keeps the system alive. Components such as recreation and skill-building can go hand-in-hand when rock climbers, a prominent hobby nearby, learn how to climb and collect cones. From everywhere on site, the work can be seen getting done in camp and on the mountainside. With this interconnected system it is possible to reduce wildfires, increase forest health and longevity well into the future, while providing economic and educational growth to the region.