Fighting Wildfires - Pitchstone Waters

The Fires of Corruption

Is America fighting wildfires instead of preventing them? This opinion piece argues that decades of suppression-focused budgets, prescribed burning, and wild horse removals have contributed to worsening wildfire conditions, and calls for a new approach

Wild Horse Fire Brigade

Initial Attack Failure: The East Evans Creek Fire and a Familiar Pattern

With wildfire, the conversation is shifting from suppression to prevention. This opinion piece argues that reducing fine fuels before ignition—rather than relying solely on firefighting after the fact—may be one of the most important challenges facing land managers in the American West.

Fighting Wildfires

Canada’s Ability to Prevent Forest Fires Lags Behind the Need

Canada’s capacity to prevent wildfires has been shrinking for decades because of budget cuts, a loss of some of the country’s forest service staff, and onerous rules for fire prevention, turning some of its forests into a tinderbox.

Wild Horse Fire Brigade

C.S. Lewis's 1944 Lecture "The Inner Ring."

The Wild Horse Fire Brigade offers a natural solution: horses graze the grass and brush on vacant wild-lands, and manage fuels that cattle avoid and that fuel extreme fires, creating safer landscapes without costly mechanical treatments or prescribed burns that often release even more toxins.

Wild Horses

Spain’s Wild Horses Help Prevent Wildfires But Survival Under Threat

Wild horses in Spain's Galicia region have played a key role in wildfire prevention by clearing undergrowth, aiding in ecosystem preservation. However, the herd has dwindled significantly.

Newsletter

Restoring Biodiversity - 3/17/2026

Meet the ‘firefighting’ donkeys of Spain. Bringing attention to a degraded and forgotten stretch of the Pecos River. How do beavers build a dam? And more..

horses and wildfire

Meet The ‘Firefighting’ Donkeys of Spain

Known as Doñana’s Firefighting Donkey Battalion, this unit is responsible for preventing wildfires in parts of Spain—all thanks to their seemingly bottomless appetites.

Newsletter

Restoring Biodiversity - 2/3/2026

Gavin Newsom’s “Zone 0” disaster. Harvesting water in steep canyons. And more....

Newsletter

Restoring Biodiversity - 1/27/2026

The biggest cause of increased wildfire is not enough animals in forests. A potentially transformative moment in American agriculture, and wildlife habitat management. And more...

Fighting Wildfires

Reducing Wildfire Fuels at Scale Cost Effectively

This lecture outlines a novel cost-effective, humane, nature-based management Plan for Wild Horses that provides benefits for all public lands stakeholders.

California wildfires

How L.A. Bureaucracy Made It Harder to Clear Flammable Brush

A mishmash of government agencies failed to keep public lands safe from deadly wildfires, residents say

Wild Horse Fire Brigade

LA FIRES: Can Saving American Wild Horses Help Reduce The Loss of Life And Economic Losses By Preventing & Reducing Wildfires & Toxic Smoke?

The devastating grass and brush fueled wildfires in Los Angeles we are all witnessing may be just a glimpse of the upcoming summer in the western United States

Wild Horse Fire Brigade

Award for Volunteer Team’s Wild Horse Music Video

A music video created by a collective of wild horse advocates won its category at the Equus Film and Arts Festival.

Conservation

Team Wildfire to Bring Mechanical Hurricane to Wildfire Fighting

Here is an interesting way to fight wildfire. It’s high tech, but does not use the chemical suppressants which are so toxic to the environment. The BEST way to fight fire is by wildfire prevention. The essential element in prevention is ANIMAL IMPACT to (1) remove the fine fuels

Bio-Diversity

Cost-effectively Wildfire Grazing Steep Ground With Lava Flows (Talus Field) by Wild Horses

“As discussed in this video, so-called ‘invasive’ horses – actually North America’s oldest native species, can reduce wildfire and restore habitat in areas unreachable by any other large grazer. Watch this 1-minute video and judge for yourself: NOTE: this post was originally shared with us by Capt. William

Fighting Wildfires

Wildfires and Wildfire Prevention: What's Working, What's Not?

Are controlled burns environmental ‘silver bullets’ or environmental disasters? NOTE: this article is being published with permission of the author. It was written by William E. Simpson II – full credits / reference below. Wildfires and Wildfire Prevention: What’s Working, What’s Not? Fire retardant chemicals are known carcinogens and pollutants

Fighting Wildfires

Forest Thinning Helps Curb Wildfires

According to the experts quoted below, lack of selective logging and prescribed burning are primary reasons for the increasing severity of wildfires, and declining forest health. NOTE: this article was originally published to NYTimes.com on September 13, 2021. It was written by Karen Weintraub. Lake Tahoe, Sequoias survived wildfires

California wildfires

Goat Stories

“At Pitchstone Waters we have found that properly managed goats are the easiest form of fire-control brush management in overgrown forests. The negative is that this a service which must be paid for. NOTE: this collection of goat-related stories was originally published to Flipboard.com. It was curated

Bio-Diversity

Fighting Wildfires With Fire

Due to well-intentioned “hands off” forest management practices – often intended to help wildlife – our national forests are accumulating highly flammable understory material faster than nature can cycle it away. The well-meaning prescription set forth in the article below is controlled burns. Based on our 50-years of range