We've been monitoring the recovery of the sites of the three burns we completed since October and we're very happy with the results!
In October 2024 we burned 1 acre that had lots of dead branches on the ground and old stumps. We had a good mosaic of some areas that burned very hot and others very lightly.
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| October 26, 2024 |
Admittedly, that unit didn't look as good as we were hoping in the early spring. While the adjacent unburned units were very lush, the burned one was slow to get started with quite a bit of bare ground showing.
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| May 10, 2025 |
But arnica eventually started popping up and we had thrown some yarrow seeds on the most severely burned patches (mainly from large stumps) and that's what you can see on the right side of the photos.
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| June 21, 2025 |
The yarrow is now growing abundantly and the arnica is still blooming despite having gone to seed weeks ago in the unburned units. We definitely overseeded the yarrow and some of it is starting to dry out but fireweed is starting to pop up all over the place all on its own!
Meanwhile, our first Spring burn happened on April 13th. Fuels larger than 1" in diameter didn't burn very well due to them still being damp from the winter. Nevertheless, it was a very successful burn that got rid of a lot of the litter and duff layers.
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| April 20, 2025 |
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| May 10, 2025 |
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| June 21, 2025 |
And we ended up with a spectacular showing of lupine!
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| June 10, 2025 |
Our last burn of the season on May 22 was very different, as the denser shrubs and grass combination had created a tightly woven litter layer that didn't burn very well and made mop-up very difficult (a very special thank you to Dan for all his efforts!). There was also lots of punky wood in the ground in the center of the unit, which retained a lot of heat. Nevertheless, much down and dead fuel disappeared.
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| June 10, 2025 |
We were curious as to how rapidly that unit would recover considering the lack of rain but we're pleased to say that the arrowleaf balsamroot is resprouting new sets of leaves right now as if it were early spring!
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| June 21, 2025 |
And some of the arrowleaf is now blooming in July!
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| July 2, 2025 |
We've definitely learned a lot about how different kinds of fuels burn at different times of the year and what kind of recovery we can expect. It's obvious that our fire-adapted landscapes respond very well to the type of fire we've been putting on the ground and we look forward to seeing how they keep on changing through the next few months.
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