Long-time Steward, Mike Winter, watches over a pile burn during a pile burn volunteer workday in 2023. Photo courtesy of Ian Nelson.
Pile Burning for Forest Health and Resilience
The picture above looks like a guy enjoying a good bonfire, but really, that’s Mike Winter, one of our dedicated Stewards, assisting at a Pepperwood Pile Burning Workshop (check our schedule for the next one). During these workshops, participants learn how to safely and legally use pile burning as a strategic fuel reduction method while also taking an active role in the process. At Pepperwood, we implement sustainable forest thinning and pair it with strategies like pile burning to create defensible space and reduce excess woody materials or fuels.
Pile burning is often the most efficient method for managing flammable materials. An added benefit is that burning can be strategically placed to reduce invasive species or other undesired vegetation while creating a nutrient-rich scar on the ground that is an excellent opportunity for native plant restoration. Together, these land stewardship strategies help make our forests, grasslands, and chaparral healthier and ultimately more fire resilient.
⬇️ Learn more about the process of pile burning in the videos below. ⬇️
Step-by-step photo points begin with pile burning (note the proper safety gear), followed by raking the soil post-burn to reintegrate the ash and nutrients into the soil bed. Grass plugs are then planted out into the burn scar. Photo courtesy of Ian Nelson.
The Cycles of Stewardship
In this recently thinned forest, you can see the build-up of woody fuels and debris on the ground in picture A, and then the reorganization of these fuels into neat burn piles in photo B. Photo courtesy of Devyn Friedfel.
Stewardship is a cyclical process, much like the changing seasons. The burn scars left after these pile burns create ideal conditions for new vegetation to grow. Often, the first plants to take advantage of these nutrient-rich spaces are opportunistic species. If we’re not careful, invasive plants can gain the upper hand. Instead, we prioritize hardy native grass species, whose root systems stabilize the soil and utilize water resources more effectively. Our stewardship team, along with volunteers, plants grass plugs—small, pre-rooted pieces of grass, soil, and roots grown in trays—to quickly re-establish these burn scars. Over the last five years, more than 120,000 native grass plugs have been planted across the preserve.
The efforts of our stewardship team, along with our dedicated group of volunteers and Stewards, play a crucial role in maintaining the health and resilience of our forests, grasslands, and chaparral. Through practices such as Douglas fir and brush encroachment removal and pile burning, we not only reduce the risk of wildfires, create defensible space, and increase the safety of ingress and egress, but also enhance the ecosystem by reducing invasive plants and promoting the growth of native vegetation.
We study the impacts of these treatments through our comprehensive ecological monitoring (for instance, the streamflow enhancement project) to ensure that each application is working towards the goal of making the ecosystem healthier. Together, we are fostering a more vibrant and sustainable environment, ensuring that our forests can thrive for generations to come.
How to Pile Burn Safely and Effectively
Pepperwood’s Fire and Stewardship Manager, Devyn Friedfel, a California-certified Burn Boss, guides us through the pile burning process in Pepperwood’s Pile Burning workshops, as well as in the video below. Devyn’s expertise and careful planning ensure that these controlled burns are conducted safely and effectively. In the video, viewers are taken step by step through the intricacies of the pile burning process.
This tutorial not only clarifies the practice but also highlights its importance for wildfire management and habitat restoration. Through carefully managed burns, debris and undergrowth can be cleared in a way that reduces fuel loads and promotes healthy ecosystem dynamics. We encourage you to attend a pile burn workshop to build on the information in this video and gain hands-on experience with burning.
There is also a video covering the same material in Spanish, for which we extend our heartfelt gratitude to Luis Morales, the Reserve Steward of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory’s Bodega Marine Reserve, for guiding us through that process. Both videos serve as valuable resources for anyone interested in understanding sustainable land practices, the importance of fire management, and the role these methods play in conserving California’s unique habitats. Through education and outreach, Pepperwood aims to cultivate a deeper understanding of these critical environmental processes among the broader community.
Pile Burning Tutorial for Northern California (English)
Quemando Pilas en Sonoma (Español)
Key Takeaways from this Article
- Pile burning is a strategic method for reducing excess woody materials in forests, which helps manage flammable materials efficiently and recycles nutrients back into the soil.
- The combination of sustainable forest thinning and pile burning enhances forest health, reduces disease susceptibility, and increases fire resilience.
- Burn scars from pile burns create ideal conditions for new vegetation, benefiting soil health. We work to get an edge on invasive species by promoting the growth of native plants in these areas.
- The stewardship team, with the help of volunteers, prioritizes the planting of native grass plugs to stabilize the soil and support ecosystem recovery after burning. Over 25,000 grass plugs were planted in the last year.
- Comprehensive ecological monitoring is conducted to assess the impact of these forest management practices, ensuring the ecosystem becomes healthier and more vibrant.
- You can get involved in this kind of work too! Learn by doing at a Pile Burning Workshop or Learn & Burn Day.
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To ensure we can continue this vital work and expand our stewardship efforts, we urgently need your support. Your contribution can make a meaningful difference in shaping the future of stewardship in our region and beyond.
