A Creston-area pilot project is turning forestry waste into a soil-enhancing product as it tests whether biochar can become a viable local industry in the Kootenays.
Wildsight’s Fire for Healthy Soils project is being led in partnership with the Creston Community Forest and the Regional District of Central Kootenay.
It uses small-scale kiln technology to convert wood debris into biochar, a carbon-rich form of charcoal made by heating organic material in a low-oxygen environment.
Graeme Lee Rowlands, water and climate director with Wildsight, said the project aims to address an ongoing challenge in forestry and wildfire risk reduction work.
“It’s very common when industrial forestry operations or wildfire risk reduction efforts are pulling woody material out of the forest that is simply piled and burned,” he said.
“This creates smoke; it releases climate change causing gases. And really there is no benefit other than getting rid of this material.”
Instead, Rowlands said this project uses portable “Ring of Fire” kilns to create biochar from the material, instead of burning it.
“There’s various ways to make biochar,” said Rowlands. “We are taking more of a small-scale nimble approach, and we are trying a model of biochar kiln called the Ring of Fire Kiln. It’s essentially just a steel ring that we do the burning in, and it assists us in getting the right burning conditions to make the biochar.”
These smaller-scale kilns cost about $4,000 each, compared with large industrial machines that can cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The material gathered in this pilot will be tested in forestry, agriculture and composing applications over the next two years.
The Creston Community Forest will use it onsite to assist in forest health efforts, and the regional district of central Kootenay will also use it as an additive for compost at its regional composting facilities.
Rowlands said the goal is to assess whether the material can become a local, marketable product.
“We’ll see what the results are over the coming year or two. You know, we hope to get some positive results that can inform and inspire other people about the use of Biochar going forward,” he said.
“It’s a relatively new product. And so, wanting this to be a value-added, marketable product, there’s some work to do in terms of assessing and then communicating what it can actually do so that people are willing to potentially pay for it.”
The pilot will continue with additional production in the fall, followed by field trials through 2026 and 2027.
He said the local validation piece is key to building demand.
“People really need to see it succeed in a local context. They want to see that their neighbors have used it and had a beneficial outcome before they would want to use it themselves,” said Rowlands. “So that’s what this project is about, getting those local results to inform local decisions.”
The B.C. government is providing about $182,000 through its Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program to support the initiative.
The project is also designed to provide training opportunities for young people through the Youth Climate Corps, helping participants gain experience in climate and land-based work without leaving the region.
Rowlands said results from the pilot will be shared publicly once field trials are complete, with the goal of informing future biochar projects in other rural communities.
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