wildfire carbon – A Montana company has buried wildfire-killed trees under deep soil, aiming to keep much of their carbon out of the atmosphere and manage wildfire risk.
When wildfires leave behind standing, blackened “widowmakers,” the question quickly becomes whether their carbon will stay locked up or escape over time. A Montana pilot project is betting on burial—treating dead trees killed by fire as a climate and safety tool rather than something to burn.
In 2021. a smouldering underground coal seam ignited tinder-dry grass and brush at Poverty Flats in Montana. triggering a wildfire that burned 267 square kilometres.. The flames killed 50,000 trees, mostly ponderosa pines, that had been shading cattle grazing on the Gentry Ranch.. In the aftermath, charred, partially burnt snags remained across a moonscape of black earth.
Those standing remnants can pose serious hazards.. The report described how the “widowmakers” could topple unpredictably onto workers or livestock, while also contributing fuel for future fires.. Standard practice is often to burn dead trees in piles, a method that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Instead, bulldozers and logging machines with giant claws were used to dump the dead trees into a 5,000-square-metre pit.. The operation then covered the material with about 6 metres of soil and gravel and a polypropylene fabric layer.. The company running the effort. Mast Reforestation. says the design is intended to keep the buried wood from decomposing for centuries. reducing additional warming and lowering the risk of another fire.
Mast also frames the approach as compatible with carbon markets.. The company says it can sell carbon credits to help fund replanting after wildfires.. Its chief executive. Grant Canary. said the method is not a “silver bullet” and depends on wider climate efforts. but he called it a powerful tool for forests.
The broader backdrop is a climate reality: the United Nations climate body has said humanity will need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to compensate for emissions that are difficult to stop.. That has helped spur a range of strategies, including planting trees, using air-filtering machines, and adding alkalis to the ocean.. Other approaches aim to speed up or extend carbon storage by charring forestry and agriculture waste into biochar. compressing it into bricks for underground storage. or turning it into bio-oil for injection into old oil wells.
Mast’s shift to wildfire-killed wood comes as western forests face more frequent and severe fire conditions.. The report noted that wildfires are now burning about 10 times more of the western United States than they did 40 years ago.. The region is bracing for another difficult fire season after a record heatwave produced a record-low snowpack earlier in spring.
A key scientific premise is how much of a tree remains after fire.. The report said up to 99% of a tree’s mass can remain after it is killed by wildfire. though the exact amount varies. and that roughly half of that mass is carbon.. For the Gentry Ranch project. the company weighed dead trees on lorries at a weighbridge and calculated close to 7. 000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent mass using nitrogen and moisture content.
To derive the amount of carbon removal available for sale. Mast said it subtracted emissions from the machinery used and an estimate of some remaining potential for decomposition.. The report stated that it then sold 4. 277 credits verified by the Puro.Earth registry. with each credit representing 1 tonne of CO2 removal.. For comparison. Mast said credits for large-volume buyers can cost under $200. depending on market conditions. and that the price can be more similar to biochar credits than to those tied to planting trees.
The project wasn’t only about storage.. Mast also used part of its profits to raise seedlings and plant them on the ranch. replacing forest canopy after the fire.. Ponderosa pine seedlings were planted on an eastern Montana property that had also been burned by wildfire. reflecting a dual approach: burying dead material while restoring living forest cover.
Pine burial could scale quickly if the economics and the environmental performance hold.. Canary said Montana alone contains about 6.5 million tonnes of accessible fire-killed trees.. He is preparing a second project and plans to bury 150. 000 tonnes annually by 2030. arguing that “there’s a lot of tonnes to be put underground.”
The permanence of storage is central to the carbon-credit claim.. Puro.Earth says buried biomass can sequester carbon for 100-plus years.. The report cited evidence of long-term preservation from a Canadian study: in 2022. scientists dug up a cedar log east of Montreal that had been buried for 3. 775 years and had lost only about 5% of its carbon.
But the same preservation logic depends heavily on conditions.. The report warned that wood can begin decaying within months if it’s buried incorrectly.. Decomposition by fungi and bacteria requires oxygen, moisture, and warmth.. Sealing wood off from oxygen is therefore critical, as is controlling exposure to water and temperature.
Ning Zeng at the University of Maryland. whose work was highlighted in the report. said burial strategies can limit decomposition by keeping air away from the wood.. The report described how at least around 1 metre of clay-rich soil can typically keep oxygen from reaching buried material.. It also pointed out that western U.S.. soils are often more rocky and have less clay than eastern regions. but that glacial tills or other impermeable layers may still exist within a reachable distance of burned areas.
Despite the promise, Zeng emphasized that key questions remain.. The report said more research is needed to clarify how different burial environments affect preservation.. Even if commercial projects proceed. Zeng said implementers might not yet have a clear. science-backed answer about the conditions needed to do it “right” every time.
There are also potential risks if burial fails.. If buried trees begin decomposing. the project could end up increasing emissions by requiring fuel for digging. transporting. and creating the burial vault.. Excavation can also disturb vegetation and release soil carbon.. Keeping topsoil intact and replacing it on top could reduce damage. but it doesn’t eliminate the possibility of unintended emissions.
The carbon model has also faced scrutiny beyond the biology.. In a wrongful termination lawsuit. a former employee accused Mast of exaggerating the value of carbon credits it sold from reforestation projects that were not tied to deadwood burial.. Mast said the lawsuit has been resolved and that it has not affected its operations.
With wildfire seasons worsening and carbon-removal plans expanding globally. the idea of burying wildfire-killed trees is gaining attention as both a hazard-management practice and a climate strategy.. Whether it truly locks carbon away for the long periods claimed may depend less on the concept itself and more on the engineering. soil conditions. and monitoring needed to keep decomposition from restarting underground.
wildfire carbon storage dead tree burial carbon credits ponderosa pine biochar alternatives climate removal
So they bury trees and that somehow counts as climate control? Seems sus.
I read “widowmakers” and instantly thought that’s just more danger to ranchers. If the trees are dead, won’t bugs and stuff just break them down and release it anyway?
Is this the same thing as like burying carbon in the ground like those coal mines? Also 267 square kilometres sounds huge but maybe they’re exaggerating. Burning piles is bad but at least it’s controlled, burial seems like a delayed problem.
Wait so instead of clearing the forest, they basically plant a “grave” for trees under soil? What happens when the soil shifts or it gets flooded or something and the carbon comes back out. We’re still acting like it’s permanent when nothing in Montana is permanent. Also that Poverty Flats coal seam thing… like was that the cause of the fire or did they blame something else?