Purposeful Fire

We’ve started a process of doing controlled burns on our land.  California is allowing for more intentional burning to quell the increasing forest fire trend we’ve been seeing across the state over the past 3 years. 

There is also an initiative by those indigenous to the area to see more purposeful burning. There are many plants that need fire in order to grow and fires are in fact natural to the area. The the decrease in intentional burning has lead to more unintentional and uncontrollable widespread fires. 

Fire itself isn’t bad. It has many purposes and one of our goals is to develop a deeper understanding of and relationship with it.

In our last two burns, we have entered parts of the land we rarely walk through and have gotten to connect to what is growing there, what might grow better after a burn, what is the slope of the land. We are getting more sight into each little micro-ecosystem here. 

We have begun the process of cutting down trees that won’t make it to the canopy, stunted growth trees that are perfect kindling were a fire to come through the forest. We are making space for the trees to grow larger and taller, and develop a more robust understory. The leaf litter all over the ground will later be burned, and then that will fall into the soil, enriching it. 

We are looking forward to continue diving into our relationship with our land and learning the best practices for how to increase the health of our forest