Arnold, CA…For today I spent a bit of time at the property turning a brush pile into kindling & fire starter twigs etc. Sometimes we take for granted the inherent value of many things. It takes so many BTUs per day to cook our food, keep us warm power our lives.

I live in a rural mountain area where forest fires are one of our biggest concerns. Not only do they blacken the forest, destroy lives, homes and trees they also are enormously polluting. Each large campaign style fire can pollute as much as all the cars in California in an entire year.

Our approach for our property is to try and look at the fuel loads holistically. Instead of just piling up the brush, downed trees & organic matter what if we processes it enough to be able to use it to power much of our fuel needs.

These are materials that would most likely be burned in control burns or forest fires. Our goal is to at least get a beneficial use from these waste materials.