INTERVIEW: Biomass burial and reforestation carbon removal key to fire prevention: CEO

A pioneering carbon removal biomass burial and reforestation project in Montana, slated for certification by early Q4 2025, is poised to sequester 5,000 tons of CO₂e and reduce fire risk in the Western US.

"We've seen a really dramatic increase in fire size and severity, as well as a drop in regrowth," Grant Canary, founder and company executive officer at Mast Reforestation, said, "you end up with persistent early bushes, either native or invasive – that serve as fuel for the next fire because they don't retain moisture through the dry season, so we're just going to see more fires."

A 2024 study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution revealed that extreme wildfire risk in the US has doubled over the past 20 years as climate change accelerates. In this context, California's two-decade effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions was potentially nullified by its 2020 wildfires, which emitted nearly twice the greenhouse gases compared to reductions achieved since 2003, according to a second study published in the Environmental Pollution Journal.

"So for areas...where the trees take a long time to grow, which are the eight states in the interior on the West, we are relying on altruism for people to bring the forest back, and I love altruism, but it's not scalable," Canary said, "And so that's where we come in and we're able to assist the landowner with our vertically integrated supply chain for biomass burial and reforest the land."

Mast Reforestation is a company dedicated to post-wildfire recovery. This involves collecting burned-dead trees for burial and terrestrial biomass storage (TDS), also referred to as biomass carbon removals and storage (BiCRS).

Mast Wood Preserve MT1 is its first project, located in Montana. It is on track to permanently sequester 5,000 tons of CO₂e in its first phase and have the carbon removal certification available for retirement in Q4 2025- Q1 2026, Canary said, adding that its project has a capacity of permanently sequestering 30,000/mtCO2e.

The Montana project will be certified under Puro.earth's terrestrial storage of biomass methodology with permanence of 100 years and reforestation as a co-benefit, according to Puro.earth's website.

Voluntary carbon market buyers receive the biomass burial credits from Puro.earth, along with the co-benefits for habitat, water, air quality, biodiversity, and habitat restoration linked to reforestation, Canary said, adding that landowners receive a cash incentive without any carbon credit risk.

"So what we do is soil sampling where we can create a low oxygen environment, clay, excavate down 20 feet, bury the biomass and then utilize some sensors to ensure that the logs are not decomposing and releasing any or off gassing anything," Canary said, adding it ensures a permanence of 100 years.

Land burial in practice

Reforesting land is costly, and most landowners lack the necessary resources, and the 60-80 years required for trees to mature, Canary said.

Canary quoted their carbon removal credits at $200-$225/mtCO₂e pricing for multiyear offtakes, and in the $250/mtCO₂e range for spot purchases, depending upon the volume size of the contract.

Platts recently heard pricing for carbon removal credits from bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCs in the range of $150-$300, while credits for direct air capture were heard closer to $500-1000/mt, depending on contract type, tenure and volume.

"From our perspective, this addresses that supply challenge because Biochar has already gone through the adoption curve," Canary said with respect to recent offtakes for biochar taking "a huge chunk of supply and adding that a big majority of biochar credits for 2025-2026 have already been pre-sold.

Burial reforestation projects follow a "very similar price profile [to biochar] and aren't constrained by some of the same supply challenges [biochar faces]," Canary added.

Platts assessed the current-year Tech Carbon Capture price, which reflects the most fungible biochar credits in the world, unchanged from the previous session at $145/mtCO₂e May 28.

Fire-killed trees prolong wildfire emissions

Yet another study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences researching pyrogenic carbon emissions from the 2002 Biscuit Fire in southwestern Oregon, which burned over 200,000 hectares of mixed conifer forest, found that only about 25% of the carbon emissions were released while the fire was actively burning. The remaining 75% came later, from the fire-killed trees that were left on the ground.

"Dead trees are a fire risk," Canary said, "They (landowners) pile and burn them, and that releases all the CO₂ that had been captured and stored for hundreds if not thousands of years."

Trees that are fire-killed don't have any alternative use; they can't be used for firewood, and often they are uneconomical to log off, Canary said. State regulators need to be shown how biomass burial complements thinning, enabling post-fire management practices in states prone to fires, he added.