Chaparral Tree & Brush Mastication

Improving Forrest Health and Mitigating Wildfires

Poor forest management has become a large problem as logging is allowed in fewer areas and invasive tree species have rapidly spread and taken over forests. Chaparral has extensive experience in invasive tree species removal via mechanical mastication, and mitigation and reduction of forest fuels via timber removal and mastication.

Tree & brush mastication is a fuel reduction treatment method used in forestry management to reduce wildfire risk, to reduce fuel loadings by returning the forest to natural conditions. Masticating fuels, or mulching the forest, involves the reduction of vegetation into a mulch type material of various sizes and is one of the many ways overstocked forest stands are thinned. The benefits include opening the canopy and forest floor which provides the remaining trees access to more nutrients, sunlight and water. When trees are crowded together, they are in competition for sunlight and water. As a result, they tend to be less healthy. Mastication can assist in removing some trees in the early stages, to allow the remaining trees to grow faster, stronger, and larger.

Chaparral also performs systematic mastication and clearing to aid in managing general forest health. We have experience in wildfire burn scar rehabilitation and erosion control, including extensive work on the Spring Creek Fire, Hayman, and Waldo Canyon Fire burn scars near Colorado Springs, CO.

Over the last few years, Chaparral has worked closely with local agencies, the Colorado State Forest Service, and the US Forest Service to create shaded fuel breaks in previously over-grown forests around the Cuchara Valley and beyond to improve forest health as well as protect surrounding communities. Shaded fuel breaks remove the small, easily ignited fuels close to the ground to reduce the spreading capabilities of a forest fire, as well as to improve the survivability of the larger, more mature trees, thus ensuring forest survival in the case of a large wildfire event. This type of mitigation also improves the health of the smaller vegetation across the forest floor, which supports the health of the entirety of the ecosystem.