For thousands of years the native people of California used fire as a tool to manage the lands and maintain healthy trees. Now-a-days, faced with the fact that we can no longer set fire to the land because of heavy fuel buildup from years of fire suppression, we must use alternatives, such as fire mimicry methods, in our work to keep California’s trees healthy. Today I’m posting some recent results of fire mimicry treatments in restoring oak, pine, and toyon health.
Enjoy!
Five years ago I began fire mimicry treatments on these coast live oaks in Carmel, CA. Last week I checked on the oaks and re-photographed them. Here are the results:
Three years ago I began fire mimicry treatments on a number of coast live oaks and valley oaks near Glen Ellen, in Sonoma County, CA. I recently did my annual checkup on these oaks and re-photographed them to assess their response.
Here are the results.
Last year I began restoration work using fire mimicry on a stand of oaks in Hillsborough, CA. I did some clearing of woody understory and moss removal from the trunks, and added alkaline-rich minerals and compost tea to the soils. I also applied a lime spray to the trunks.
Here are the results after just one year.
While the focus of work here at Sudden Oak Life is on oak health, there are lots of other kinds of trees that respond to fire mimicry treatments. Today I would like to share with you the results of some work being done on several ponderosa pine trees. These photo sets show how the pines have responded after three years of treatments. Note that the last photo set is of an adjacent UNTREATED pine.
In April of 2012 I was asked by the City of Piedmont to treat several oaks along Moraga Ave. that were appearing unhealthy. Some of the oaks were on a cliff, so I set up a belay and worked spreading minerals and compost tea underneath the oak canopies and applying a lime spray to the trunks. In addition to the City of Piedmont oaks, I also treated several oaks on an adjacent private property at the same time. Here are the results after just one year.
I’ve had several recent posts showing how oaks in Santa Barbara are flourishing after fire mimicry treatments. Here is another set of photos from a grove of oaks in Santa Barbara that have been receiving fire mimicry treatments for the past four years. Compare these results with the results in this same grove posted last year after three years of treatments.
Yesterday I posted some very encouraging results from a grove of oaks in Santa Barbara. Today I would like to share some more results from another grove of oaks in Santa Barbara. These oaks have been treated with fire mimicry for three years, and all but one (case no. 20100107.5) are showing positive responses. The photos above and below show the results.
Be sure to examine the last photo set of this series (case no. 20100107.7), which shows the changes in an untreated control oak located in the same grove.
Last week I visited and re-photographed a number of oaks in Santa Barbara that first received fire mimicry treatments in January of 2009. I’ve previously reported on these oaks located in Toro Canyon here, here, and here. Several of these oaks are infected with a bleeding stem canker disease, possibly Sudden Oak Death. This past year the oaks were re-treated after a two-year pause in fire mimicry treatments, and the results are pretty remarkable. Examine the photos below and see for yourself.
When fire mimicry treatments began in 2006 on the oaks at Hearst Castle I had identified two control oaks, trees there were not to be treated in order to compare their response with the treated oaks. The yearly photos indicate that, indeed, these two oaks have shown no clear improvement in canopy density, compared to the treated oaks.
In 2012 a California State Park employee did a fire mimicry treatment on one of the two control oaks by mistake. The results were noticeable. The photos below show results for both the control oak that was accidentally treated, and the other control oak that has remained untreated. Note that the treated oak has shown noticeable improvement in canopy health in just one year! Note also that I have used the photos from Jan. 2011 rather than Jan. 2012. The canopy damage caused by the windstorm in Dec. 2011 would have biased the results.
Sudden Oak Life by Lee Klinger 
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