A technique called ground-ripping is being used to prepare soil for replanting in areas of the Chilcotin heavily destroyed by wildfires in 2017.
It is not a new method, but something Daniel Persson, forestry superintendent with Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation Ltd. (CCR), has tried before and hopes it will be a success in the region.
He explained ground-ripping is typically done with a bulldozer and it has ripper teeth behind, sometimes even two or three, to cut into the soil 30 to 50 centimetres to loosen hard layers of soil and create planting spots for the planters that come in one year after.
"The ripping really picked up more significantly after the 2017 wildfires," he said. "It [the fires] burned through the Interior Douglas-Fir Zone, very intensely."
South facing slopes, especially, are more vulnerable because they are hit hard by the sun and water when it rains.
"If we want to turn that area into a forest again we go in and plant it, but just to plant on the soil as it is, mortality of the planting is typically high."
Heat waves also cause tree mortality as the trees are baked, dry out and die because they are so exposed.
In 2021, when the province experienced a heat dome, it was a lesson learned, for CCR he said.
They lost a lot of freshly planted trees and decided to try the ground-ripping to mitigate mortality risks.
"We are ripping the ground in a north-west and south-east direction because the sun rises in the east and swings around and sets in the east," Persson explained. "It protects the trees from the sun by creating a little embankment on both sides."
Planters will plant the trees in the middle and even that tiny bit of shade helps the trees survive.
Persson said it really matters and is important to make sure to rip in the right direction.
Last year roughly 100 hectares in the Hanceville wildfire area was ripped and was planted in June and the survival so far looks good.
Not all soils respond positively to the process so it is important to choose the right sites, he added.
"A lot of the work we are doing is in the Hanceville and Big Creek areas because it is that type of soil."
If the areas were left alone, nature would return it to a grassland, he said.
Originally from Sweden, Persson said site preparation is used in forestry throughout the world and there is lots of science to back it up.
Around 200,000 trees, mostly Douglas-fir, are being planted in ground-ripped soil this year.
"We have a fairly large planting program to try and rehab those burned sites to get a forest growing back."
Persson has been with CCR for a year-and-a-half, and before that was a consultant for CCR.
