Land Stewardship Services
Our host of land stewardship services aim to bring land into balance. By recognizing the natural processes which govern a piece of land, we are able to apply a specific practice or group of practices that will create a fire-resilient landscape, improve ecosystem health, and bring fourth the hidden and dormant diversity of the land.
To schedule a site visit and get a free estimate please email firstrainfarm@gmail.com, call 530 802 6899, or fill out the form at the bottom of this page.
Our practices:
Prescribed Fire
Fire is a natural part of this place and humans have used fire as a tool to improve land for thousands of years. We apply low-intensity fire to the landscape to reduce fine dead fuel accumulations and to stimulate fire-adapted plant and animal species. We are State Certified in Prescribed Burning (CARx) and our team of experienced practitioners apply fire safely and artfully to the land to achieve fuels reduction and ecological objectives.
Forest Thinning and Pile Burning
We specialize in light-mechanical hand methods of forest and brush thinning. Using chainsaws and brush cutters, we selectively thin understory vegetation to the appropriate spacing, as determined through the lens of Fire. We understand fire behavior and the way fire impacts vegetation which allows us to determine vegetation spacing and placement. We burn the cut material in piles, which eliminates these larger fuels from the land and quickly returns the nutrients to the soil.
Before
After
Targeted Grazing with Goats
We use our herd of goats to manage understory vegetation and grasslands, and to improve the nutrient cycling on the landscape. The goats are used before or after the other treatments, depending on the vegetation types and the objectives on a given piece of
