Saving with Fire
How Prescribed Burns Protect and Restore
The smoke rises in controlled ribbons across the grassland, moving exactly as planned. It's early morning at one of JMLT's properties, and fire is doing what it has done here for thousands of years—only now, it's working on our schedule.
For decades, we've been taught that fire is the enemy of conservation. But the real enemy? That would be our own amnesia about how these landscapes actually work.
What We Forgot About Fire
Before European colonization, fire moved through California's grasslands and oak woodlands every 5 to 15 years. The Ohlone and other Indigenous peoples were master fire stewards, using controlled burns to manage the land with a sophistication that took ecologists generations to recognize.
These fires were routine maintenance. They kept invasive grasses in check, stimulated native wildflower blooms, reduced fuel loads that might otherwise create dangerous wildfires, and created the mosaic of habitats that California's wildlife evolved alongside. Coast live oaks, blue oaks, buckeyes—these trees didn't just tolerate fire. They expected it.
Fire as a Conservation Tool
At JMLT, we're working to restore fire to its rightful place in the landscape. Prescribed burns—carefully planned, tightly controlled fires conducted under specific weather conditions—allow us to mimic the ecological role fire once played.
The benefits are immediate and dramatic. Within weeks of a burn, native perennial grasses begin to emerge in the charred dirt, freed from the dense thatch of invasive annual grasses that typically dominate the East Bay hills. Native wildflowers that have been waiting in the seed bank—sometimes for decades—suddenly have the light and space they need to germinate. And nutrients locked up in dead plant material return to replenish the soil.
Fire Returns Every 5-15 Years
Before colonization, California's grasslands and oak woodlands experienced regular burns managed by Indigenous peoples—creating the resilient ecosystems we're working to restore today.
But prescribed fire isn't only about habitat management. It's also about fire safety. By reducing fuel loads in a controlled manner, we're helping protect both our conservation lands and neighboring communities from the kind of catastrophic wildfires that have become all too common across California.
Enter the BurnBot
Last year, we tried something new: a BurnBot.
Sound like science fiction? It's right up there—but it's also a practical solution to a real problem. Conducting prescribed burns requires specific weather conditions: the right temperature, humidity, wind speed, and fuel moisture. These windows are narrow and unpredictable. You need trained personnel, extensive planning, permits, and often a small army of support staff. All of which makes prescribed fire expensive, logistically complex, and difficult to scale.
The BurnBot—a remotely operated vehicle that ignites vegetation while keeping the crew at a safe distance—doesn't replace human expertise. But it expands what's possible. It allows for more precise ignition patterns, reduces risk to staff, and can work in terrain that's challenging for traditional burn crews.
After the Burn
Walk a property a few weeks after the fire and the earth is black, but also alive. Green shoots push through the ash. The landscape exhales.
This is what restoration looks like—not pristine or static, but dynamic and messy. We can't manage these ecosystems by simply leaving them alone, not after more than a century of fire suppression has fundamentally altered how they function. But we can partner with natural processes. We can remember what Indigenous land stewards have always known: that fire, used thoughtfully, is an act of care.
As climate change makes California's fire season longer and more intense, prescribed burns help build resilience for the future. Every acre we burn under controlled conditions is an acre less likely to fuel the next megafire. Every native plant community we restore is better equipped to withstand drought, heat, and the ecological disruptions that climate change brings.
Learning to Burn Again
The work isn't without challenges. Prescribed burns require extensive planning and permitting. Air quality regulations, while important, can limit burn windows. There's always risk—controlled fire is still fire. And there's a learning curve as we rebuild expertise that was systematically lost over generations.
But at JMLT, we're committed to this work because the alternative—continuing to suppress fire—simply isn't viable. Our landscapes are calling for fire. They're built for it, shaped by it, resilient because of it.
So we'll keep lighting fires, carefully and deliberately, with respect for both the science and the thousands of years of Indigenous knowledge that preceded it. We'll keep learning, keep adapting, and yes, keep experimenting with BurnBots and other tools that might help us scale this work to meet the need.
Because in the end, protecting the land sometimes means letting it burn.