Video by my friend Sean Corwin.
A more detailed discussion of the science, TEK, practice, and efficacy of fire mimicry is given in my 2024 book Forged by Fire: The Cultural Tending of Trees and Forests in Big Sur and Beyond https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3ZVMB3P)
Tomorrow is winter solstice and I would like to celebrate by sharing with you a redwood tree that I’ve been tending with fire mimicry for the past four years. All images were taken on the same date and at the same time of day. Enjoy!
Yesterday I checked up on a grove of Monterey pines that have had a couple of fire mimicry treatments …
Four years ago I began fire mimicry treatments on a grove of coast live oaks overlooking Monterey, CA. I’m quite pleased with the results but I’ll let trees speak for themselves …
Last year I shared a post on a non-toxic treatment for oakworm infestations here on the Central Coast of California. In that post I stated:
“In 2017 there was a severe oakworm infestation of coast live oaks in the Monterey region and elsewhere. I’m often contacted at these times by property owners concerned about their oaks. Many wish to spray the trees with insecticides to reduce the infestation. Upon my advice, I tell property owners that spraying chemical insecticides is not necessary for the oaks to recover from these infestations, provided they are given proper care. Since the oakworm infestations are related to a lack of cultural fires, which controlled their populations in the past, a way forward is to emulate fire effects on the forest ecosystem.
Thus, rather than using chemical sprays as is typically recommended by arborists, I prefer using fire mimicry treatments to oak trees infested with oakworm. In the present case study I recommended to the property owner to do fire mimicry treatments instead of spraying the oaks. Never knowing for sure, I explained to them that the oaks would likely recover from the infestation, and that they would show continued improvement in the following years. A second set of fire mimicry treatments were preformed the following year (2018).”
The repeat photo sets shown last year and the new ones from this year indicate that the oaks have continued to maintain healthy canopies following the 2017 oakworm infestation.
This is a 2017 image of an old-growth coast live oak in Monterey that I’ve been treating with fire mimicry for eight years. At that time it had bleeding stem canker infection, possibly Sudden Oak Death disease or Armillaria (oak root rot), at the base of the trunk. After the initial soil fertilization treatments I performed a surgery on December 2, 2018 to remove, cauterize, and poultice the canker infection.
Here are the results:
After seven years the surgical wound has shown continuous healing with no residual signs of infection! The oak’s canopy density has also increased during this time (see photo set below).
I’m calling this a win against oak disease!
Yesterday I examined a grove of coast live oaks that have undergone fire mimicry treatments for the past five years. Some of these oaks are centuries old and show signs of being tended by the Native Awaswas People. Here are the latest before-and-after photos showing a significant increase in health of the canopy foliage in ALL of the treated oaks. Enjoy!
(The above photo set may appear to be of different locations, but they are both taken from nearly the same spot.)
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Hey fellow tree-huggers, especially those in SoCal, how would you like to learn about the health and care of our old-growth oak forests and what we can do to mitigate wildfires using the knowledge of a broad community of stakeholders? Well next week Sudden Oak Life and the Santa Monica Mountains Fire Safe Council are giving you the opportunity to explore these issues together amid a mix of voices from the Indigenous Tribes of the LA basin, the National Park Service, California State Park Rangers, the local community fire safe council, and me, a western-trained ecologist. Please join us for a three-day (and night) learning and camping experience where you will not only up your skills, but, more importantly, you will help grow and strengthen the community of people that is necessary to better tend our forests.
This workshop will likely fill up so please consider registering soon and/or sharing this announcement with your community. Workshop registration: https://www.smmfsc.org/oakworkshop
Below are further workshop details and a schedule of activities:
Eight years of tending these coast live oaks and coast redwoods with fire mimicry. (Note to self – widen frames of original photos to better capture future upward and outward canopy growth)
Here I present new findings of the positive effects of fire mimicry of which I was previously unaware. On several occasions I’ve documented, via time-lapse videos, the process of clearing, thinning, and pruning of oaks to eliminate the ladder fuels and reduce the competition from shrubs and young trees. The above video is a compilation of several time-lapse videos coast live oaks I’ve treated with fire mimicry. When examining these videos carefully, it is clear to me that there is an additional consequence of these treatments that I had not previously realized, which is that the level of the lower canopies, and in some cases even the upper canopies, is noticeably increased in height after fire mimicry treatments. Higher branches allow more sunlight to leaves, thus increasing photosynthetic rates, all while reducing the fire hazard. That seems pretty cool!
Today’s KSQD show Talk of the Bay with host Christine Barrington features my work with the Esselen Tribe, and includes a few spoilers from my new book “Forged by Fire”.
Forged by Fire with Lee Klinger: The power to mitigate wildfire risk can be in our hands
Sudden Oak Life by Lee Klinger 
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