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Fire Ecology Restoration Project funded

PINA has received a $75,000 grant to research improved methods of wildfire risk mitigation in relation to forest health. Our restoration forestry practices will be used to treat four sites in southwest Oregon while training a cadre of practitioners and documenting impacts. Forest thinning to reduce fuel loads will be followed by making biochar in portable kilns, contour placement of larger logs, return of the char to the forest, and finally prescribed burning.

PINA is currently offering paid work, internships and research opportunities in connection with this project. Additional funding is also sought for the 2nd and 3rd years of this project.

After a century of public policy to suppress fire, western forests hold an immense overburden of flammable fuels that industry and government officials increasingly acknowledge must be reduced. Due to climate change, southern Oregon is one of the most vulnerable regions of the continent to increased wildfire risk. These fire-adapted ecosystems were traditionally managed by indigenous peoples through regular low-intensity burns, which reset favorable conditions for harvestable plants and prey animals. To restore the adaptive use of fire to limit danger and enhance forest health, we must embrace a period of transition during which hundreds of millions of acres must be rid of their excess fuel burden.