I hope that this series of photos will help you understand how we straw mulch the places in a fire where it has burned extremely hot. The reason we mulch is to hold the seed and the soil in place until the plants from the seed can hold it stable without the straw. When you lose your top soil you don't have much chance of producing a lot of anything. It is really important to keep all the soil on the hill rather than wash it down the streams. If you double click the photos you can see them bigger.
I have the photos in about a perfect reverse order but am too tired and lazy to reshuffle them so here is a little explanation of straw mulching.
Center ridge has been mulched---notice the yellow color of the ground.
Straw bomb just about to hit the ridge after it was dropped from the net hooked below the helicopter on a long line (150 foot cable).
Helicopter being used to fly the straw mulch. We are using three of these.
Another straw bomb before it hits the ground. Notice how much they expand before they hit.
About 2200 pounds of straw in the net it is dropped from.
Crew loading net for pick up.
Crew waiting to remove an empty net and re-hook a full one. Sometimes there is less than two minutes to hook, refill the net, and hook again. This is a supreme helitac crew. They run (and I do mean run) steadily from sunrise to sunset.
Helicopter heading out loaded but you can't see the net full of straw because it hasn't cleared the stack yet.
Straw stack.
Bigger straw stack.
Biggest straw stack. Tractors and bale wagons used to transport the straw up the hill to the helispot from which it will be flown out.
Stack of straw in easy reach of the landing.
Trucks delivering straw at a rate of about 300 tons per day. We'll likely end up flying over 4200 tons. That is a lot of trips since each flight carries about 1 ton.
1 comment:
Pretty cool! I'd love to see them doing that in person! :0)
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