Research theme

Forest carbon sequestration with biochar

Forests as carbon capture solutions. Converting excess biomass (wildfire fuel reduction) into biochar can improve soils and store carbon in the soil for centuries. Biochar production in fire-prone landscapes provides multiple benefits and a range of technologies can assist the process.

Fuel reduction in fire-prone forests produces large amounts of slash, and burning it in open piles releases most of its carbon back to the atmosphere. Converted to biochar instead, a meaningful share of that carbon can stay locked in soil for a very long time, while the biochar itself improves soil structure, water holding, and nutrient retention.

Our work covers producing biochar from thinning and fuel-reduction material with low-cost kilns, returning it to degraded forest and meadow soils, and testing what it does there. Technology can help do the work, and play a role in measurement. Soil trials, along with the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) a carbon registry requires, show how much carbon is processed and stored.

Projects

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An open-topped steel ring kiln beside a heap of cut brush, with a small stepladder and long-handled tools leaning against it.

Active Underway

Biochar from fuel reduction

Fuel reduction (clearing fallen and dead wood, pruning low branches, thinning) leaves wood that has to come out anyway. We turn it into biochar on site in flame-cap ring kilns, so little of it has to be hauled, and mix the biochar back into soils the Gold Rush left degraded. Fuel reduction and kiln burns are underway; soil trials and carbon estimates come next.

San Domingo — Forest carbon sequestration with biochar, Wildfire resilience, Ecological restoration, Water management & soil restoration

Field journal

All 2 entries
  • Bright orange coals glow through a narrow seam in the dark steel wall of a ring kiln. +1 photo

    · San Domingo

    Biochar burn day at the ring kiln

    Burn day in the steel ring kiln at San Domingo, the day after the crew staged the burn. Slash from thinning goes in load by load, and a…

  • Tall orange flames rise from a load of brush in a new steel ring kiln with bright, bolted panels, standing on bare red earth below an oak-covered bank. +1 photo

    · San Domingo

    First burn in the new ring kiln

    On November 24, 2025, we ran the first burn in a new steel ring kiln at San Domingo Arbory, among DeepForest's first biochar burns. Its…