A Better Biochar Burn Pile

Burn pile construction makes a difference

I have been on a 17-year mission to change how we do burn piles in western forests, and hopefully, everywhere. Ever since I harvested my first biochar for my garden from rain-quenched burn piles on the US Forest Service land next to my house, I have wanted to find a way to make biochar from burn piles.

The conventional pile burning method is to build small piles across the forest, using the hazardous fuels cut to protect us from catastrophic wildfire. The piles are sometimes built well, and sometime built haphazardly, but they are always lit near the bottom and they smoke and smolder all day until they burn to ash. As they burn down to ash, they also burn the duff layer, the organic soil horizon, leaving behind bare mineral soil and rocks in an ugly scar.

Invasive weeds are happy to move into these burn pile scars, while native understory plants cannot easily germinate without the moisture and support found in the living soil.

We can do better. My first approach was to design a series of kilns to contain the fires and produce biochar. We can make lots of biochar that way, and my most recent design, the Ring of Fire Biochar Kiln is portable and easy to use off road in the woods.

However, in some places we might have 50 piles per acre, far from roads, on steep slopes and other places difficult to access. Here we use what is called a Conservation Burn Pile. For a few years now, the Biochar in the Woods network of practitioners has been experimenting with different pile construction methods for biochar production, but recently I learned about a superior method that I will be using from now on: let’s call it the Tipi Pile.

The tipi or teepee is a conical structure covered by skin or bark that was used as a dwelling by Native Americans on the Great Plains. According to Wiktionary, the word tipi or teepee originates from the Lakota language and the word “thípi,” which is often translated to mean “they dwell.” Similar cone shaped structures were used for shelter by people on other continents as well, including Eurasia.

I first encountered the tipi pile construction in Paradise, California, where we burned piles that were built by a Mechoopda tribal crew. The piles burned beautifully and made lots of biochar when we put them out at the end with water. The long poles arranged around a densely compacted center pile held in the heat, burned faster and cleaner, and prevented the pile from falling apart halfway through the burn. We consistently made more biochar in tipi piles than in other piles made by simply stacking brush and logs together. Chalk up another one for Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) pointing the way to better forest management. Someday we will wake up and learn that the indigenous people had it all figured out thousands of years before the Europeans arrived.

Earlier this month, I got to work on a project where we burned about 25 tipi piles and made several cubic yards of biochar.

A blazing tipi pile will produce a lot of biochar. The small biochar mounds on the right are each 5 gallons in size, measured in a bucket. We were getting five to ten of these buckets per pile.

Building, lighting and tending these tipi piles is pretty easy. The hard part is putting them out to save the biochar before they burn to ash. That takes water, and while our crew could carry the 5-gallon backpack pumps, actually operating the hand pumps takes a lot of muscle and is fatiguing after awhile. We were using 2-4 bags worth of water on each pile, or ten to twenty gallons of water. We also had a hose that could reach many of the piles and that was much easier. At our debrief session at the end of the day, the crew clearly stated their preference for the hose!

I now believe that Tipi Piles are the way to radically change how we treat hazardous fuels across large landscapes. Not only can we make lots of biochar that will hold water in forest soils, we also avoid the destructive burn pile scars.

Our biggest challenge is getting water to these remote sites. But we have plenty of water tenders around that are used all summer to fight fire. Why can’t we use them in the winter to make biochar?

What other ideas and technologies can we come up with to get small amounts of water to our burn piles? Let me know in the comments if you have a great idea!

Also, if you want to learn more about biochar, please sign up for my Practical Biochar Course on Regenerative Living. You have until December 26 to get the Early Bird Rate, so don’t wait!

If you want a preview of the course before you decide, join me for a FREE WEBINAR: Practical Biochar for Farms and Homesteads

Thursday, December 5th 2024

10 am PT, 11 am MT, 12 pm CT, 1 pm ET

All registrants for the webinar will receive the replay link.

Discover the basics of biochar—a form of carbon-rich charcoal that boosts soil health and captures carbon—in this webinar led by biochar expert Kelpie Wilson. We’ll explore how biochar can enhance soil fertility using organic ‘waste’. Perfect for anyone looking to explore biochar’s potential in agriculture and beyond.

Three spots in the upcoming Biochar course will be randomly selected from the participants at the end of the webinar.

Sign Up for the FREE WEBINAR Today:

https://us02web.zoom.us/.../541.../WN_8WN6p8gIQLGh1j1TvmNzSQ

Check out my other links as well:

Early Bird Registration thru Dec 26 for Kelpie's Practical Biochar Course

The Biochar Handbook by Kelpie Wilson now available

Order your Ring of Fire Biochar Kiln: RingofFire.earth

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