Fire pit recovery?

[Rabbit leg]

Over the years I have cleared up quite a few old fire rings/pits.
I used to get annoyed when finding these but now I find it 'therapeutic' to see how far I can shot put the rocks and clean up the charred logs.

I have been keeping an eye on a few that were cleared up 2 to 3 years ago. Most of them are still black earth with maybe a weed or two growing through.
I have tried digging up the earth and mixing in plants and turds but that doesn't seem to help.

Does the charred remains and ash prevent future growth?

What is the best way to help recovery? With only what is available in the wild.

Please, please don't turn this into an angry bad people fire pit thread.

Only advice on recovery will be tolerated. The rest will be banned from the forum.

 

[Woody girl]

A fire pit with a prolonged fire may have completely sterilised the soil so that could be why nothing will take. Have you tried completely removing any blackened soil and replacing it with a few inches of fresh soil? Perhaps if there is any rosebay willowherb seeds they might take as it reputedly grew everywhere after the fire of London in the ashes. I don't know how true that is as I wasn't there . Nettles also like old fire sites so maybe you could collect and scatter those over the site.
I use wood ash on my garden so I don't know why nothing will grow in these spots.
I do know that grass won't regrow as it destroys the root systems. So perhaps take a small bag of grass seed with you to sprinkle over the area once fresh earth has been put on the site.

 

[bearbait]

I believe that Rosebay Willowherb is also known as Fireweed for the reason you suggest Woody Girl - and not just after the Fire of London!

 

[Woody girl]

I believe that Rosebay Willowherb is also known as Fireweed for the reason you suggest Woody Girl - and not just after the Fire of London!

Yes the fluff makes good tinder.

 

[Janne]

Let me first say - I think you do admirable work, I am bowing deeply!

I think the best is to 'dig it over' and mix the ashes with new fresh earth.

As much fresh earth as possible, with a fresh earth op layer.

I would not worry abour reseeding, Nature will do what is best for that spot.
The pH has changed, all bacteria killed. a difficult 'nursery' for new growing plants!

 

[Robson Valley]

I wouldn't even try for remediation. The ground is cooked, the microflora is gone, the pH is forever altered.
Take a close look at how western Canada responds to the huge wildfires we have.
Regeneration takes decades. Even dead, burned alive cows don't help at all.

The real advantage of a fire pit is that it encourages repeated use. Good rock collection, nice cooking arrangement, etc.
A good fire pit makes sense and design out of the site. Provides direction for use and activity.
Taken apart and the rocks flung all over the landscape doesn't contribute much.
Instead, everybody builds a new fire here, a new fire there, and soon there's fresh fire mess all over the site.

Follow me into the great Holmes River valley = every decent level patch for many km is an often used camp site.
Every one of those has a single neat and tidy fire pit. Just one. There isn't fire crap flung all over the place, anywhere.

 

[santaman2000]

Wood ash is generally a fertilizer. We used to take the ashes from te fireplace and spread them around the flower beds and fruit trees when I was a kid. Most fire pits here regenerate on their own the first year. After the second or third year they’re impossible to spot.

 

[Janne]

I have found that Chamomill ( M. Chamomilla) is one of the first plants that start inhabit the burned area.
Makes an awesome tea, if in flower!

Another pioneer plant is Ch. Angustiflolium that grows like mad in burned, or severely disturbed areas. Very common alongside railway lines, it seems to even tolerate quite well the nasty toxic stuff they used to impregnate the wooden bits with ( Creosote etc) .
sorry, have not the English name for that. The roots of it are excellent roasted as a coffee erzats.
Red-pink flowers.

 

[Robson Valley]

That's fine to use the strongly alkaline ashes over a very organic (and maybe acidic) soil.
Our brief frost-free growing seasons show a far slower natural recovery.
That, of course will not happen as those sites are all used as hunting camps every autumn.

The exact position of that now destroyed fire pit may have suited the lay of the land for breeze and smoke movement.

 

[Janne]

We use the ashes from our woodburner in Norway to fertilize the trees and plants around our house.
The Rhubarb and Blackcurrant bushes love it.
Does look funny when it is spread in a shallow trench ( foot impressions) on top of the snow though!

 

[Rabbit leg]

Thanks for the replies.

Digging up and mixing fresh earth looks like the best option. Not as easy as it sounds as it would enlarge the damaged area.

Robson V - I'm trying to avoid the situation you describe. I think people enjoy making thier own fire from scratch and aren't keen on using someone else's.

 

[demographic]

I tend to just leave em, most people who camp where I do seem to just use existing ones.
Plus the place I go has been a mining area that has recovered from smelting lead on a fairly industrial scale so I'm pretty sure the odd firepit can recover, given time.
I could launch the stones about but people would just ratch more out of the beck so it seems kind of pointless.

I've been camping there for about 40 years without it degrading significantly, in fact during that time the smelting scars have lessened during that period.
The only thing thats blighted the landscape up there is the national park putting snotty signs up saying that collecting minerals off the spoilheaps is illegal.
As two of my brothers worked down a mine near there and removed thousands of tons of ore (but that was Ok cos the right people were paid) I find the signs trying to stop kids picking up a bit of quartz slightly pathetic.

 

[Billy-o]

Robson Valley nails it. The ground under the fire is more or less sand, no structure or nutrients left. That said, pioneer species can usually live on next to nothing, and will be in like Flynn to sort things out themselves.

But the point is to re-use the things ... that's how you're supposed to do it The stones don't always last that long anyway, cracking and splitting in the heat. Repair, reuse .. all that. By their nature, they tend to be in quite nice spots already.

Mind, it's kind of moot here. We've had open fire bans for two weeks already and the wild fires are already up and running. There was a bit of a drought this year too. So, it'll be fun again and everything smelling like an ashtray by July, ahead of evacuations in August. Grim, eh?

 

[Robson Valley]

Turn around in the picture that I posted. It's about k23 up the Holmes river valley,
There's a wild camp site beside the creek that holds at least 6-8 big tents without looking like a zoo.
The communal fire pit is a work of art. 6' x 6' of flat pieces of sedimentary rock.
For cooking many things as well as sitting in the evenings, it's a sight to behold.
After what must be decades of seasonal use, there isn't a speck of charcoal or any human evidence anywhere else.
Local people don't use it. Outsiders hunting camp.

 

[Billy-o]

Spoke too soon. Fire evacuations have already started in Alberta

 

[Janne]

I think that the work by Earthworms make old fire areas recover biologically much faster than the Earthworm free North America.

 

[Broch]

This is the site of a large Bonfire in 2016 when we had to burn all the brash from a large oak that was blown over in Dec 2015. I've done nothing to it but keep cutting it as it's in an area I keep relatively short. The original burnt area was probably 3m x 3m; the bare area left is less than a metre wide.

My point being, ground does recover by itself eventually.

However, I'm with Robson Valley, it's probably better that any future fire is made in the same place. It's not how I used to think but, on reflection, I believe it's the best solution environmentally.

 

[Robson Valley]

Janne: where did you get the idea that North America is "earthworm-free?"
Night crawlers are bigger than pencils. Red wigglers are drying in the sun after the last good rain.
Worms can't eat charcoal in a highly alkaline ash soil. It isn't "soil" in any usual sense of the word as it is.

I have inspected dozens of rings of firestones in wilderness camp sites.
There is no mess, no wanton destruction of the fire site.
That speaks highly of the users willing to camp and cook in the same places as anyone else stopping by.
The stone fire ring is usually the sole evidence of nice places to pitch your tent.
The exact position of it was usually determined by day/night airflow (and fire smoke) on the mountain slopes.

But these days, look but don't touch. We're into another early and violent wildfire season across western Canada.
The re-instated fire ban won't be lifted until October.
Even then, some fires continued to burn underground, under the snow from last summer = flared up again.

I live in the wet, west-facing side of the Rockies so our wildfire hazard is usually much less here than anywhere else.
In fact, the wettest place in Canada for July (rain on 21/31 days average). Bless my Coleman stoves.
Like the past two summers, we are completely prepared to open a refugee/evac center with pasture land for animals.

 

[Janne]

The Earthworms have been working......

See how beautifully the soil/earth/plants have recovered?
Is that not the ideal?

If you bake and burn the same place year after year, it will get more and more destructed?

Remaining bits of charcoal are beneficial for the soil.
Google the previously cultivated areas in the Amazonas, where the soil is a mix between charcoal and crushed ceramics.

RV, I read it years ago, that the soil was virtually free from the worms, but that the immigrants brought them over with the dirty agricultural implements. Is that wrong?

 

[santaman2000]

I think that the work by Earthworms make old fire areas recover biologically much faster than the Earthworm free North America.

Huh? Earthworm free North America?