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A recently pruned gray pine in the upper meadow at San Domingo Arbory.
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Pines with their lower branches removed.
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An unpruned gray pine, with dead branches built up along its lower trunk.
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Pruned branches stacked at the base of a pine to dry.
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Resin dripping from a fresh pruning cut.
Open burn season is almost here at San Domingo Arbory, and in preparation we are pruning the lowest branches off gray pines (Pinus sabiniana) around the upper meadows. The goal is to remove dry, dead lower limbs the tree no longer uses to create a fuel gap between the grass and the tree’s crown. In winter as we burn off some of the meadow grass under safer conditions, the fire will pass far below branches of the tree. If an unplanned fire comes through in summer, there are fewer ladder fuels (the low limbs that let a grass fire climb into a tree’s crown).
An unpruned gray pine nearby has a skirt of dead, dry branches hanging down its trunk, right at the height of flames in the grass. Fine dead branches like these catch easily and carry fire upward. The pruned pines have bare lower trunks instead. The cut branches are stacked to dry for burn season conversion into biochar using a ring kiln. See the Biochar from fuel reduction project for how that works.
