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Biological Fire Mitigation involves practices and post-treatments that improve soil health to create proactive and long-term resilience regarding wildfire risk. This approach can work with current mitigation methods as biological mitigation specifically focuses on increasing soil health. Healthy soil is incredibly beneficial as it sequesters carbon, retains water, and nurtures and promotes native plants that have coevolved with our region. 

Fortunately, nature responds quickly to soil regeneration methods. Below are some facts/benefits regarding healthy soil as a result of biological mitigation methods: 

• For every 1% of Soil Organic Matter (SOM) added to an acre of land, that acre can hold an extra 20,000 gallons of water. This can happen very fast – there are regenerative land managers who’ve increased SOM by a few percent in just 5-10 years.

• Just one teaspoon of healthy soil has more microorganisms in it than there are people on the planet. 

• Due to soils across the world being extremely degenerated, fires today are burning hotter, faster, higher and deeper. We can help to reverse this trend by regenerating soil – this provides moisture-loading and drastically decreases fire behavior.

• Promoting the growth of native plants increases soil health benefits as native plants tend to have deeper and more complex root systems; therefore, they help to create a larger moisture horizon in the soil. 

• Specific to our local climate in Colorado: here in the arid West, we rate at about a 6 or 7 on the brittleness scale. Brittleness is determined by the amount of moisture available at the soil surface continually throughout the year (for reference: a zero on the brittleness scale is a rainforest; a 10 is a desert). Areas like ours that are more arid/brittle, coevolved with ruminant animals (elk, deer, moose, bison, etc.) and pressure from predators. This very specific kind of herd impact on the land is what maintains the nutrient and moisture-cycling necessary to prevent soil degradation and keeps the land healthy.

There are a number of ways to create this healthy, positive cycle of soil regeneration, and we are lucky to have a number of businesses in the area to tap into. The biologically-focused approach to mitigation comes in many forms, all of which can be utilized on their own or combined with traditional mitigation techniques. 

For a list of soil-regenerating businesses in La Plata County, click here: La Plata County Wildfire Resource Center (this is also a template for other counties in Colorado and nationwide). 

If you’re interested in viewing the Biological Fire Mitigation presentation to the La Plata County Wildfire Advisory Board, here is the recording: (VIDEO) WAB mtg 5.2.24