John Suavecito

This is an excerpt from Kelpie Wilson's blog. It shows an example of looking back on biochar that was created 10 years ago, the decision of what to cut in the forest, and using community resources to help fight forest fires and retain a lovable forest section.
John S
PDX OR


I made my first biochar burn piles in the woods ten years ago. The site was a forest plantation with some merchantable timber on the federal land next to our small rural community in Southwest Oregon. The US Forest Service was planning a timber sale there, and the community was opposed to any logging on the site. A popular community trail ran through this forest, and it was right next to many homes.

At that time, we had a district ranger who was interested in working with us to come up with a better alternative that the community could support, so we began a series of meetings to design what we called the Page Creek Project.

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We met for over a year, often out in the forest, to hear from forest ecologists, Forest Service managers, and community members. We talked about forest health, soil impacts of logging, ladder fuels, canopy closure, live fuel moisture, fire resilience, and the possibility of a commercial timber sale.

We all agreed that some trees should come out. The Page Creek Forest was in an unnatural condition. The most common practice of commercial forestry is clear cut logging and replanting with mostly mono-cultures like Douglas fir. The resulting even-aged plantations are not something often seen in nature. Even after a severe fire, what comes back has more diversity.

In the picture below of one of our field trips, you can see how closely the trees are spaced and how the many branches could serve as ladder fuels to carry a fire up into the canopy. A natural forest has more openings and a greener understory with larger trees spaced farther apart. This forest, so close to so many homes, was far more flammable than a primary, un-logged forest.


A community field trip to discuss options for the Page Creek Forest.

The question for our Page Creek Project was how much to take. A key objective for the Page Creek Forest was to maintain canopy closure to keep the understory shaded, cool, and moist. Our long summer droughts are stressful for trees. Keeping the soil moist translates to higher live fuel moisture during the critical summer fire season, and reduces tree mortality from drought stress.

We went through and marked the trees that we thought should be cut. Grayback Forestry did the logging and yarded the small trees out to a neighboring field where we held a pole sale. A year later, as we looked at the result, we decided it was still too thick and marked more trees for another sale.


Buyers bid on the poles we yarded out of the Page Creek Forest. Local folks often use poles to build barns and other outbuildings.

Even after our second cutting of trees, the canopy still looks good and the forest stays cool and shady underneath.


Ten years later, after two logging entries, the canopy is still closed, providing shade for the understory.

While a closed canopy is desirable for shade, on the other hand, too many trees, too close together, will compete with each other for water, and more trees will succumb to drought. In the end, we all felt great about the project, concluding that we did a good job of balancing logging with forest health and fire resilience.

We even started a new group to share the lessons learned, called IV-FROG, the Illinois Valley Fire Resiliency Oversight Group. IV-FROG is now a dynamic community organization, helping local landowners access funding and other resources to do fuels reduction work and expand our Firewise USA neighborhoods.


The Page Creek Forest ten years later. Much better in every way!

I went back to the forest the other day, to take some pictures and have a closer look at the burn piles we lit ten years ago to take care of the leftover logging slash — all the limbs, brush, small logs and and other flammable material left behind after we removed the poles.

I brought a soil corer to see what the soil profile under the burn piles looks like after ten years. We did two kinds of burn piles - conventional piles that burn down to ash until they go out on their own, and biochar burn piles where we quench the piles with water at the glowing coal stage to save the biochar. Most of the biochar we made was left on the ground right where it was made.

I wanted to compare the conventional burns with the biochar burns to see what the soil looks like today. I took a photo of the undisturbed ground and then took a soil core, followed by digging a hole with my trowel to get a look at roots and other material in the soil. I also did this in the ground adjacent to each pile to see what it looked like without any burn pile. Here are the pictures showing what I found:


Biochar Burn Pile #1: Top row is the biochar burn pile. Bottom row is the adjacent, unburned ground. The char was very thick in this pile and it was full of tree roots and mycelium. The adjacent soil was brown with natural forest humus, but also had some clay and lots of tree roots.


Biochar Burn Pile #2: Top row is the biochar burn pile. Bottom row is the adjacent, unburned ground. The char was less thick in this pile. The adjacent soil was brown with natural forest humus.


Biochar Burn Pile #3: Top row is the biochar burn pile. Bottom row is the adjacent, unburned ground. The char was full of tree roots. The adjacent soil was brown and somewhat compacted.


Conventional Burn Pile #1: Top row is the burn scar. Bottom row is the adjacent, unburned ground. There is an inch or so of decomposing fir needles on top, with understory plants growing in it, but underneath is mineral soil with not much in it. The unburned ground was full of tree roots and mycelium


Conventional Burn Pile #2: Top row is the burn scar. Bottom row is the adjacent, unburned ground. You can see a layer of ash in the burn scar core, with mostly mineral soil underneath. The adjacent soil has a lot more humus.

Here are some short video clips that give you a closer look at what I found:

It’s interesting to go back after ten years and see the impact of biochar burn piles on the forest soil. Different sites will look different depending on the soil type, vegetation type, and the thickness of the char layer.

Overall, it seems to me that biochar burn piles are better for forest soils than burning to ash. There was less impact on the understory plants than I expected, but it’s not surprising that after ten years the organic layer would start to come back on a burn scar and support small understory herbs.

The surface appearance of the different kinds burn piles was not extremely different. I had to dig into the ground to determine whether it had been a conventional or a biochar burn by the presence or absence of biochar under the top two inches of needle fall.

The most significant impact is the clear presence of greater tree root density and mycelium in the biochar burn piles. After all, our goal was to support these young trees and help them grow back into a mature, old growth forest.

They say a community becomes great when the elders plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in. But planting trees is not enough. We must also care for them until they can grow into a great community of their own that no longer needs us.

For now, our forests need us, and they need biochar!


The Page Creek Community Forest today.

Please, if you want to learn more about practical biochar tips and tricks for growing your own food, or you are interested in stewardship biochar for restoring natural ecosystems and biodiversity, check out some of my links below:

The Biochar Handbook at Amazon.com

The Biochar Handbook at Bookshop.org

Purchase Kelpie’s Practical Biochar Course

Order your Ring of Fire Biochar Kiln®: RingofFire.earth

Check out my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@KelpieWilson

Biochar On Site network for practitioners of stewardship biochar

You can also find me on Linked In and Instagram

The Biochar Prepper is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber



© 2026 Kelpie Wilson
PO Box 1444, Cave Junction, OR 97523
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Hugel culture works that way. So does putting rotting wood in the soil when you plant a tree. They are good for building the fungal content of the soil, which trees need.  However, in the carbon cycle, the wood will soon gas off into CO2.  One of the great things about biochar is that it's so stable in the soil. It sinks carbon for thousands of years.   Great for climate change that way.

John S
PDX OR

Great creativity and resourcefulness on reusing the metal garbage cans into a useful activity.  

JohnS
PDX OR

Erika House,
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Makes sense. One should probably think about the Ph level in one's soil, though.  We have very acidic soils naturally here, as do you, probably, in Seattle.

John S
PDX OR

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42773-026-00588-x

It's an added benefit.
John S
PDX OR

That's exactly what I'm talking about in this thread. Great minds think alike!
John S
PDX OR

I'm not sure what a coal bed is. I could put soil underneath it, but it would be a hassle.  I burn biochar in my driveway. I live in the suburbs and it's the only safe place to burn it.  Everywhere else would be too close to trees or the fence.  I have a densely planted food forest.   I would have to haul in soil and then remove it afterwards. Doesn't seem like it's worth it.  Thanks for the suggestion, though. It may help someone else.
John S
PDX OR

I tried this Monday. It was partly inspired by the likes of Trace Oswald and others' experiments.  I didn't tilt the barrel, but I started it half full.  I couldn't really replicate Trace's version, because his had no holes in the bottom of the barrel.  Mine has holes.  Holes in metal are hard to put back.  

The main motivation was that it seemed that often, I will start a biochar burn and at some point, the fire wants to choke and go out.  My main interpretation of this is that there is condensation that builds up too much and the combo of water vapor and smoke makes the fire go out.  

I have made some steps to decrease this effect. I went from a 5" wide chimney to a 10" one. That helped a lot.    When I have the chimney on, I also now usually lift the chimney to place the wood in quickly. Then I let the chimney down quickly and let it start to burn before adding another one.  I also took Douglas Alpenstock's idea of a metal bar connecting the bottom to the top, so that air can always travel from the bottom to the top and vice versa.  All of those helped but I would still get sputtering after awhile-maybe 45 minutes to an hour.  

My theory was too much smoke and condensation at that 45 minute time.  For my new experiment,  I would start with mostly skinny sticks and only about 1/2 full.  There is less condensation in skinny sticks and they burn quickly.  I have done this a few times now.  Because they burn quickly, I have to actively add a lot more wood at the beginning.  There is a period of about 45 minutes now, when I am adding wood, a bit by bit, until I can actually fill the 55 gallon barrel.  

It is more work, but so far, I have not experienced a choking from smoke and condensation.  It seems that starting this way may prevent the sputtering from condensation and smoke.  

John S
PDX OR

I'm still old. Tired and sick too. I am recrunching it the next day once, and then the next day after that once.  Otherwise, too painful.

I have noticed that when I drive over it, sometimes, my wheels miss the big bunch of uncrunched biochar again and again.  Our pickup has a wider distance between wheels than the car so it's harder to accurately target it.  I drove almost exactly up to it, got out of the car, then checked for extremely detailed alignment accuracy and it helped.  

Also, if I keep missing, I can just physically crunch that tiny wedge with my shoes.  I couldn't do the whole thing with my shoes, but I can get that part with my shoes.

John S
PDX OR