Slash removal technique

[smokechase II]

Slash removal

Thought every one in the US had heard.
We have a huge wildland fire problem in the Western States.
Need to get rid of fuel - best way is the way nature did.

Typically the methodology is:
1) Huge amount of planning and paperwork,
2) Appeals and courts rule,
3) If allowed - Logging that is basically thinning from below,
4) Logging slash "treated" as in the pic below - burning landings,
5) Sale area post commercially thinning of the smaller diameter trees,
6) Hand piling of this thinning slash,
7) Burning of handpiles,
8) Paperwork on the prescribed burn plan,
9) Conduct the underburn if smoke management and the weather allows,
10) Go burn something else.

The primary reason we are having these huge fires is the amount of live and dead fuel out there that was not there under either Natures management or Native American management. Some years we get lucky with the weather and starts, but mostly nowadays it is no summer vacation.

Part of the soil thing is matching the chemistry that the plants evolved in. Fire has been in the western forests for quit awhile.
Most of the best nutrients come from the smaller diameter twigs and especially the leaves. Unfortunately that is what we have to remove the most of to reduce fires. So, yes there is not a perfect solution here.

 

[smokechase II]

Joey

John Paul Sanborn:

Dont' recall a Joey Cornel who contracted out of Bend, OR.

I probably saw him, which contractor did he work for?

In 2004 and 2005 we had pretty slow years here locally for the contractors. Probably the reason he left.

 

[smokechase II]

burn pile problems

One of the problems with burning the bigger landing piles is that they heat the soil so badly they sterilize it. Often you'll drive by a landing pile that was burned 5 years ago and all that will be growing on it is some moss and a couple clumps of grass.

Unfortunately we have been unable to generate much interest in grinding these piles and taking them to electricity plants etc.

For us the best solutions would be to chip or hawg fuel the slash. But that is not financially viable locally at this time. So if we pay the larger amounts for those things to happen, we can't do as much for the rest of our 1 million acre district.

 

[Happyjack]

GREAT PICS! Thanks

 

[Doctor Dave]

One of the problems with burning the bigger landing piles is that they heat the soil so badly they sterilize it. Often you'll drive by a landing pile that was burned 5 years ago and all that will be growing on it is some moss and a couple clumps of grass.

Unfortunately we have been unable to generate much interest in grinding these piles and taking them to electricity plants etc.

For us the best solutions would be to chip or hawg fuel the slash. But that is not financially viable locally at this time. So if we pay the larger amounts for those things to happen, we can't do as much for the rest of our 1 million acre district.

One can hope the price of oil stays high or goes up. Then, small plants could be built locally to burn it, and use the energy to do something like make hydrogen fuel, which can be compressed and shipped by rail to where it's needed. Let's ask the Dems in Congress for funding a demo project. Hydrogen fuel made in the Sierras would find a ready market in LA.

How else should the millions of acres be treated? Thinning, piling, burning, all makes sense for long-term forest health, but most projects are lucky if they break even. Throw in some big trees and old-growth (the Bush plan), and the public often shuts it down. Throw in a practical move in the direction of oil independence, and we'll see what else might work.

Making hydrogen fuel from forest thinning and slash will also address global warming, because it might be carbon neutral in the short term, and send less net carbon to the atmosphere long term. Why? Because burning young trees dips from a different storage pool---10s or hundreds of years--- vs. fossil fuel that has been stored for millions. Then, because the treatment avoids intense crown fires, you would have more predictable storage in the woods on faster growing trees; the amount stored can then be planned with rotation age or volume in multi-aged forests.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

John Paul Sanborn:

Dont' recall a Joey Cornel who contracted out of Bend, OR.

I probably saw him, which contractor did he work for?

In 2004 and 2005 we had pretty slow years here locally for the contractors. Probably the reason he left.

I know he had his own company, cannot remember the name of it though, ArborPro comes to mind. He was there for ~3 years. Crazy big tree guy with a Class C felling cert. He got real kicks out of felling big trees on fire. I've worked with him on a few storm jobs. Big, lean, blond and hyperactive.

 

[Ekka]

Hey Smokechase.

We get regular bushfires here, many on the sides of roads so you get to see what the response of different trees is.

One scorched a stack of eucs and a few slash pines. The eucs fluffed up pretty quick, a year later the black bark was gone and they actually looked quite normal, you could hardly tell.

The pines, still brown in parts or dead!

If you get a wild forest bush fire and the pines get burnt ... they die over there too?

 

[SRT-Tech]

i wish that we had inmate workers in the forest here in BC canada, but instead we give them cushy apartments, big screen tv's, golf courses on the jails and other perks that most working stiffs will never get to enjoy. :bang: :bang: :bang:

great pics from you guys!

 

[smokechase II]

Brush fires

Ekka:

Survival of trees exposed to heat gets a little complex.
Trees can be killed by fire:
1) Needles/leaves consumed or blackened by heat, (usually convective).
2) Needles/leaves browned by heat after bud burst or in more sensitive species.
3) Tree girdled by heat, this usually on thinner barked species or on younger trees that have not grown thicker bark yet.
4) Root collars heated significantly.
5) Trees exposed to heat when they are much dryer from drought or in winter conditions when live fuel moistures can be surprisingly low.
6) Live tree with say a log next to its base that burns well and damages the trunk enough that the live tree falls.

etc.

You can burn next to a tree on two different days. On one day, the tree survives but on another the identical amount of heat kills the tree. Go figure.

When exposed to heat the Pines we have locally do:
Poorly - Lodgepole has thin bark and small needles.
Moderately well - Ponderosa has thick bark and mid sized needles.

In the South they have this fabulous species called Longleaf Pine. It does amazingly well even as a 6" tall plant when exposed to fire. In its grass stage it grows for several years, building up a root system. Then when a fire kills the grass around it, the Longleaf takes off. In this case, it's the long numerous lush needles that usually provide enough protection of the bud to allow it to carry on.

Pines don't come back from their roots.
Many other trees and brushy plants do.
Now there is an advantage. To come back from the dead with a large root system in place.

Photo below is from a South Carolina Prescribed burn. I would guess that the smaller of the young trees in the foreground has a 50/50 survival rate. Largely dependent on proximity to bud burst. The larger for sure is going to make it. Most Pine species on the west coast would croak.

 

[smokechase II]

photos of underburning in winter or early spring

Because of the drying in live plants that goes on throughout the winter. We can do some careful underburning.

One photo shows the tool we most commonly use, a drip torch, next to snow and plants burning in late March.

The other photo shows where we got carried away in early March.

These pics are from low snow years on the sides of hills facing the sun. So not only did the drying of the plants in the off season affect their flammability but also the angle of the sun.

 

[smokechase II]

Burning a hill side cheaply

This burn got its start in February.
First photo shows a view from a southerly direction during the initial burn.

Second photo shows that we had to plow the roads to be able to drive to the top of Round Mtn, elevation 5900'. {Remember, the first photo is from the south and doesn't show the snow pack on the sides, top or base of the butte. We used the snow as ready made fireline}

Again, the dryness of the winter, a low snow pack year and the angle of the sun on the W - SW - S and SE slopes made for a nice burn with very very low mop up and patrol costs.

By the way, we killed and wanted to kill, numerous white fir (50'-70' tall) because they did not belong there in those numbers ecologically. They were a threat to the big Ponderosa. Our burn was successful, got rid of lots of fir and saved the Pondos for now.
Third photo shows this primarily fir kill.

{Ladder fuels can be over 100 feet high. The worst example is the pine and fir coming in under the Giant Sequoias in California. Those trees are so big and important and so rare. I want someone to kill and remove those trees that are a threat to Sequoias even if they are in National Parks.}

 

[smokechase II]

Down under stuff

Ekka:

A Tasmanian on the 2000 fires in Montana by the name of Sullivan told that there were over 250 species of Eucalypt in your neck of the woods.
I bet most are fire adapted species, to some degree. (good pun huh)

You Sir, live on a fire continent.

I once saw a photo of Kites and Hawks from down under working a flame front for rodents. You'd a thought they lit the fire for their shopping needs.

 

[Doctor Dave]

This burn got its start in February.
First photo shows a view from a southerly direction during the initial burn.

Second photo shows that we had to plow the roads to be able to drive to the top of Round Mtn, elevation 5900'. {Remember, the first photo is from the south and doesn't show the snow pack on the sides, top or base of the butte. We used the snow as ready made fireline}

Again, the dryness of the winter, a low snow pack year and the angle of the sun on the W - SW - S and SE slopes made for a nice burn with very very low mop up and patrol costs.

By the way, we killed and wanted to kill, numerous white fir (50'-70' tall) because they did not belong there in those numbers ecologically. They were a threat to the big Ponderosa. Our burn was successful, got rid of lots of fir and saved the Pondos for now.
Third photo shows this primarily fir kill.

{Ladder fuels can be over 100 feet high. The worst example is the pine and fir coming in under the Giant Sequoias in California. Those trees are so big and important and so rare. I want someone to kill and remove those trees that are a threat to Sequoias even if they are in National Parks.}

Sounds like you might want to find out about prescribed fire in Yosemite in CA I heard a guy in charge of it there (well, about 10 years ago) give a presentation on their approach. (Name is VonWankendonk). He claimed that they could reduce fuel loads in even the most fire-prone Sierra forest stands. They carefully moniter fuels, moisture content, and weather; if there is a natural ignition in designated wilderness, they send in a crew to monitor; the crew suppresses if the conditions and/or fire behavior are not desired. Same scenario but with drip torch ignition in non-wilderness.

Link:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/yose/fire/burning.htm

I had no idea that the FS used this approach; I thought that they always logged in conjunction with burning. In NP, logging isn't permitted.