This interview is part of our Women’s History Month series- check back this week for more stories from female forest landowners to inspire your forest stewardship journey!
Sarah Fischbach and her family have owned a parcel of Sierra mixed-conifer forestland for six generations. Since attending a Forest Stewardship workshop with family members and co-owners of the property, Sarah has endeavored to improve their forest’s health through thinning and returning fire to the land. She has been active in her local Prescribed Burn Association (PBA), which helped her family conduct a burn on their property last year.
“The community aspect of PBAs and teaching and learning from each other is really one of my favorite things about it. I learn so much every time I go to a burn,” she shares.
Sarah’s perspectives on working with Prescribed Burn Associations and owning forestland with her family can be seen below. Answers have been edited for clarity. All photos courtesy of Sarah Fischbach.
Q: Please share some background about your forestland: where you are, forest type, ownership history, etc.
A: I'm a private landowner in El Dorado County. It is 439 acres of mixed conifer forest, so there are a lot of cedar, Douglas fir, sugar pine, and ponderosa pine. My great-great-great-grandparents homesteaded the land in the 1880s. They were cattle ranchers from Switzerland, and we have kept it in the family ever since.
I think I was 6 weeks old the first time I visited, and my daughter was 3 weeks old the first time I took her up there. She was born during the King Fire, which touched a corner of our property, so I was very grateful to be able to take her there as soon as I was able to. I am the current forest manager along with my uncle, but it is owned by all of us in the family.
Q: Do you have a favorite spot on your forestland? What do you like to do for fun on your land?
A: Pilot Creek runs through our property, and we love hanging out at a specific spot on the bank which is full of azaleas, lupines, and butterflies. The kids will throw rocks in the creek for hours. We always marvel that after the 6th generation of kids, there's still rocks to throw- they should have all been in the creek by now.
I'm also very lucky that my grandparents built an A-frame cabin above the creek that has a beautiful deck that overlooks the land. There's no cell service up there, so when we visit, we can connect with our family and our friends. There’s over 400 acres, and you can just explore for hours and hours.
Q: What is a management activity or project that you are most proud of? Is there a project that you’re looking forward to completing?
A: The thing I'm most proud of is that this fall we did a prescribed burn on the property. This was the first burn to happen here since the native inhabitants took care of it. I learned so much about prescribed fire from the El Dorado PBA, the Placer County PBA, and the Sonoma PBA. The burn was really a family and community affair. Multiple other landowners around Georgetown and some PBA volunteers came, and my uncle and I were able to lead the burn.
Right now, we have a couple of fuel breaks planned, so we hope to tackle those once our Timber Harvest Plan is completed. There needs to be a lot of logging and pile burning, then hopefully more broadcast and prescribed burns.
For a while, we had unfortunately been under the assumption that wild land should be left alone, and that the trees in the forest know what to do. So, unfortunately we have way too much overgrowth. We probably have 400 trees per acre right now on our land. With the King, Mosquito, and Crozier fires, we all realized how important it was to actively manage this forest. By chipping away at these projects, my family’s hope is to restore a more natural fire return interval, and a more historic forest structure that is more open.
Q: Are there obstacles to managing your land that most people wouldn’t expect? What about unexpected benefits?
A: I think the obstacle is that we’re in the beginning of this process. As a private landowner who is not a forester, I still don't know what I don't know. There’s also the financial aspect of being a landowner, because while it doesn’t cost us a lot to keep this land, it does cost a lot to maintain it.
Finding financial assistance can be tough sometimes, and it’s hard to navigate the alphabet soup of grants that aren’t EQIP or CFIP. I know that funding is available, but there’s a lot of detail when it comes to the grant applications, and the funding pools for each grant can change frequently.
For unexpected benefits, our unique ownership structure and management goals give us a lot of freedom that people who have more financial obligations may not experience. This isn’t a tree farm, so we don’t have the costs associated with harvesting trees for profit. Managing this land has changed the way I see forests too. I don't think about management in terms of what our forest will look like after 10 years. I'm thinking about what I'm going to enable my daughter and my nephews and my cousins to do 40 or 50 years from now, because that's what my grandparents did for me.
Q: What are some resources that you found helpful when you began your landowner journey?
A: I cannot overstate how important it is to show up and talk to people. I'm very active with the Placer County Prescribed Burn Association and the El Dorado, Amador County Prescribed Burn Association. It’s a great model, and it’s fun. The community aspect of PBAs and learning and teaching each other is really one of my favorite things about it. We don't just talk about fire. People tell me about grants, they tell me about management practices. I learn so much every time I go to a burn.
I have my Firefighter 2 certification, which is great because it opens up opportunities for more training. I also took a chainsaw course last year, because knowing how to fell my own trees safely is very important. Another helpful resource is the Forest Stewardship workshops. For me, it opened the door to connecting with knowledgeable people.
Q: Is there a piece of advice you would give to other women landowners?
A: My advice is to get your hands dirty and talk to people. Landowners are always happy to share their insight, and you can ask them questions like “Why did you prepare that section for burning and not that section? Why do you want to keep cedars?” There are so many questions that you can only ask when you have the land and landowner in front of you.
Take advantage of resources too. There’s UC ANR, PBAs, even local town halls, so use whatever works best for you. Owning land is difficult. It's a lot of work, but it's very rewarding.
Q: What gives you hope for the future of California’s forests?
A: I think there is more general awareness that there is a problem with our forests, and that they need active management. People understand that California 400 years ago was not wilderness. Indigenous people stewarded these lands, so our forests cannot be healthy without active management.
I also see that more people understand the role that fire plays in California’s ecosystem. It’s necessary, and it’s good for our forests.