New tech could squeeze wildfire risk, carbon from forest debris

By Shi En Kim, Arizona Republic

On the warm, parched evening of July 20, 2019, a forest thinning project in the Dry Lake Hills in Flagstaff became ground zero for a $9-million wildfire.

An excavator struck rock and threw sparks, but the operator failed to detect the smolders. By next morning, flames were licking across the forest floor, devouring the grass turned to tinder by a late and reticent monsoon. Within 24 hours, the flames would balloon 1,000 acres into what became the Museum Fire.

But the problem began long before the first spark flew. In thinning operations that started weeks before, managers didn't have enough money for removing all the wood that the workers sawed up. Piles of logs and branches sat among the uncut pines, a fire hazard on a fire-prone landscape, pyres waiting to burn.

“You had all this biomass just laying there in the forest,” said Jay Smith, the forest restoration director for Coconino County. It “created even more of a problem” once the flames encroached.

Treating forests to mitigate future fires is only as effective as getting rid of the detritus it generates. But dealing with this leftover wood, whether as trash or a salvageable commodity, isn’t as simple as it sounds, and is often expensive.

At the heart is a waste management issue, involving a flammable kind of byproduct that’s generated far from urban centers.

But a new company aims to make something valuable out of this woody waste. The Arkansas-based startup Graphyte has entered agreements with Coconino County to squeeze forest thinnings into dense pellets, then stash them underground.

Read more in Arizona Republic.