California has been hit with a collection of brutal forest fires over the past few months. The Bureau of Land Management has decided to team up with a group that can help. Bringing on a non-profit forest management organization, the Bureau will assist the team in recreating a normal Californian forest to resist fires more easily. Hopefully, the two major organizations can help stop this issue before it gets any more damaging to the ecosystem.
"It’s very common to look at what was there before the fire and just say, let’s replace that one for one," said Austin Rempel, senior manager of forest restoration at American Forests in an interview with Fast Company. "[Let's] try and get the exact same seed, exact same trees, and replant them. But that doesn’t make sense when looking out 30, especially 60 years from now."
The non-profit works to restore tree patterns to their original way or growing, long before Europeans settled on American soil.
One way of doing this is growing trees in clumps, spreading them far enough apart that they don't catch on fire with one another. This also assists with both CO2 emissions and drought regulation, as certain trees require more water than those they are clumped in and around. For now, it will take careful planning, meticulous study, and a lot of patience to create a version of California forests that are safe to visit, hike, and camp inside.