I am working with USFS in the northwest and some private researchers on a method I hold clinics in that reduces emissions from open forest management burns by at least half, sometimes by 90 percent. It requires, however, that the burn material be stacked. Stacking is common practice in timber operations and in some managed fuel reduction projects, but is impractical and expensive in the normal Rx burn to maintain already low fuel levels.
However, if the technique were used more in forestry operations where stacking is practical, it could free up some tolerance for Rx burns where it is not.
On my recent JMT trip, I noticed a lot of burn piles around Red's being prepared, possibly for burning this fall. As most of you know, there were massive blowdowns in that area recently, and the fuel accumulation is really unbelieveable. The conservation burn method used on the piles I saw could be hugely effective in reducing the emissions from those inevitable burns, and allow a lot for Rx burns in the same areas.
Please let me know if there is interest in this method.
PS: the same method can be used to massively reduce both emissions and biomass consumption from cooking fires. Although there was a fire ban in all jurisdictions south of Yosemite on this recent trip, my casual but trained observation is that the average back country cooking fire - in those ridiculously large fire rings we all love so much - uses ten to 100 times or more fuel than is actually necessary to do the job.
In Yosemite, I used a stove that I make that runs on litter, the broken pine cones, needles and small sticks that cover the ground in a proper campsite, and cooks an entire meal on a couple ounces of the stuff. The few times I was able to use this (YVBP camp, LYV, Sunrise, Lyle) I never used more fuel than I could gather sitting on my butt in one spot. And that included a little cheering flame and a lot of continued hot water for washing up from the dying coals. I posted here on this stove last winter as I was developing it.
In the next year, I will be actively and enthusiastically promoting the conservation burn for ALL back country fires, where permitted.
