Fire Prevention and Selective Harvesting

The redwood forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains now contains ten times more trees per acre than existed before the large logging boom of the late 1860’s! This current density supports less biodiversity, allows less water to move to rivers and streams, and creates much greater fire potential than a virgin forest would have.

One hundred years of strict fire suppression and the strictest logging regulations in the world have created unprecedented forest canopy and fire potential. Koala Tree Care is run by a certified arborist that is by no means a logger, in fact, an exact opposite. However, we believe that there is in fact a problem and we have some solutions:

  1. There are many smaller trees that can be thinned around homes to reduce fire risk and help provide older stands of trees more opportunity to flourish.
  2. Selecting the right trees gives the forest a greater life span.
  3. We promote recycling of redwood forest products to be used on either the homeowner’s property or to be recycled into biomass.
  4. We create forest products from this material that allows us to offer an environmentally sensitive and sustainably harvested option to large scale timber harvested products.

Our methods of fire prevention by low impact, sustainable, and selective harvesting are different than what you are used to seeing. Call us for a free consultation to see if this is right for your home. And be prepared, 2014 is set to be the worst fire year on record!