When fire burns ranch land, it takes years to mitigate the damage and may be impossible to do without help.
Mast Reforestation has been helping a Big Horn County land owner restore the land from a wildfire four years ago.
Learn how the biomass is buried in the video below:
“We raised cattle. They rested underneath what trees we used to have,” said Rebecca Gentry. “This land has been in our family for over 80 years. It was my grandfather's. My family worked this ranch. My dad farmed and ranched here.”
Gentry's family lost numerous Ponderosa pine trees during the Poverty Flats Fire that burned 75,000 acres in July of 2021.
“The amount of burn that we had on this property was over 80 percent,” Gentry said.
Fire devastated this land several years ago.
Now they're rehabilitating it, burying all the logs and other biomass.
Eventually grass will start growing and it'll be replenished and all set for cattle.
“Cattle will still be able to graze on top of the facility, and elk and so on,” said Bill Layton, Mast Reforestation director of operations. “And we're going to store that carbon and biomass so that it just remains in that state.”
Layton says the plan for the Mast Wood Preserve project is to bury the dead trees in what is called the vault for 100 years.
“It's going to be in a sealed chamber,” Layton said. “So, by the time we get the wood loaded in there, we'll build a cap on top of it. The cap will be compacted, and it'll have another layer on top of that. That will be restored to its original sort of grassland conditions.”
It will be all grass on top of the vault, and trees will be planted on other parts of the gentry's land.
“It allows us to restore the ecosystem using the funds from the carbon market as we bury that biomass,” said Lisa Gonzalez-Kramer, vice president of forest carbon programs for Mast Reforestation.
Gonzalez-Kramer said the sale of carbon credits will help pay for the project.
This is the first biomass burial project for her company.
“It's so integral to agriculture, cattle grazing, working forests, all of those aspects of the landscape, hunting leases will be supported by this project,” Gonzalez-Kramer said.
Removing the dead trees also makes the land safer for the ranchers who lease the gentry's property for their cattle.
“We have a strong farming tradition here,” Gentry said. “Everyone in this area is a farmer and a steward of the land.
