Mastication contractor integrates specialized Tigercat and TCi machines into operations vital to the future health of California forests.
— Paul Iarocci
Based in Chester, California, Kelly Holt is a third-generation forest industry professional. His grandfather, Jay Holt founded M&J Logging. He dedicated 60 years to the industry as a business owner and founding member of the Associated California Loggers (ACL). Kelly’s father Tim continued to lead the long-established family business that still operates today under the name Holt Logging, Inc. He also served as president of the ACL in 1998.
Kelly grew up immersed in the timber industry. Working alongside his grandfather and father, he learned about all aspects of the business and developed a deep appreciation for the industry’s traditions and responsibilities. In 2010, he and his wife Traci changed paths, focusing on the niche market of mastication rather than production logging. “When we first started doing this, mastication wasn't a very big thing,” says Kelly. The new company, Diversified Resources, won a bid for a five-year fuel reduction project in Nevada. “That's what kind of got us going. We started off with an old 2006 Valmet with a Quadco head, and we grew that into a fleet of ten machines.”
Today, the company focuses on fire mitigation and remediation, encompassing vegetation management, creation of defensible spaces, and fuel load reduction. The contracts include services and techniques such as in-stand thinning and pruning, brush removal, and mastication. The client base includes public agencies, resource conservation districts, fire safe councils, and private landowners.
Tigercat fleet
Bejac Corporation is the Tigercat dealer in California (as well as Nevada, Arizona and Utah). Kelly purchased his first Tigercat machine in 2018, an M726G mulcher equipped with a 4061 mulching head. He followed up with a 470 track mulcher in 2022. This past spring Kelly purchased the prototype LX825 swing mulcher carrier equipped with the TCi 4154-15 mulching head. Although at the time of our visit the LX825 had only worked a few hundred hours, Kelly and Traci were already eagerly awaiting the arrival of their second unit.
A maintenance contract like this is where the M726G really shines. The machine cost effectively covers a lot of acres masticating previously treated forests. This Sierra Pacific owned plot is just on the outskirts of Chester, California. The wide timber spacing and understory growth suppression is ideal to promote forest health and provide a defence for the town.
The company deploys the fleet of machines mostly on the basis of terrain. Kelly explains that the M726G primarily operates on flat ground. Because the wheel machine moves quickly and can effectively treat large areas, he favours it for maintenance contracts. “That is the best bang for the buck because you can cover a lot of acreage,” Kelly explains.
The 470 is compact and benefits from very low ground pressure. “It doesn't really like a lot of rocky ground because it's a rigid frame, and the operator is sitting right in front of the pivot point,” says Kelly. “However, the 470 is really good on steeper terrain. It's a billy goat. We tend to use it on slopes up to 65%.”
Kelly reserves swing carriers like the LX825 for the harshest terrain and environments. Kelly happily reports that although the new machine has been working steadily in rocky terrain, his operator has yet to break a hammer. The large two-piece carbide tips are extremely resistant to rock impacts and produce a coarse mulch that falls comfortably within the specifications of his contracts.
Like the 470, the LX825 is purposefully compact. Compared with the LX830E upon which it is based, the new undercarriage reduces overall width by 5 inches to 3,25 m (10 ft 8 in). Along with a lighter-weight boom system, it is almost 4 000 kg (8,800 lb) lighter than the LX830E.
A two-part fuel reduction contract. The LX825 follows a commercial thinning designed to create a wide shaded firebreak on either side of the access road.
Additionally, the machine penetrates the dense forest beyond the break to remove small nonmerchantable timber and understory, enhancing forest health and resiliency.
“There are a few reasons why I wanted this smaller carrier,” Kelly explains. “First, if we're in plantations, a lot of times we'll have specs on tree spacing — maybe 15 to 20 foot spacing. As you're leaving your trees, you have one here in the middle, you go up and turn. With a bigger carrier, you might uproot the standing tree, or the track might hit it. We also have ground compaction requirements. If ground pressure is too high, it will eliminate you from even being able to bid on the job.”
The second reason is transportation. “Our lowbeds are only good for a certain weight. Up here on these roads with the LX830, I would require a pilot car front and rear and I'd have to install outriggers.” The smaller size is a big advantage for Kelly because the machines move a lot — up to ten times per year. “If I was in a cut and carry situation, if I was logging, I would want an 830. Because you need the extra weight. You need stability. You need track power. But waving that masticating head around, I don't need that. All the weight it ever carries is the mulching head.”
For Kelly, another big and somewhat unanticipated advantage is fuel consumption. The LX825 was designed ground-up for mulching, with very efficient hydraulic circuits and high flow to the head. The machine is burning over 30% less fuel than his other swing carriers, while still maintaining production.
If I was in a cut and carry situation, if I was logging, I would want an 830. Because you need the extra weight. You need stability. You need track power. But waving that masticating head around, I don't need that. All the weight it ever carries is the mulching head.
— Kelly Holt
The LX825 was essentially birthed in California with a commitment from Bejac and a selection of local contractors to provide feedback to quickly develop a machine suited for niche mastication and fire mitigation requirements. The machine was also designed with a convertible hydraulic system so that contractors can easily swap the mulching head for a felling saw as required. Considering the volume of dead standing timber in California, Kelly thinks this will be an additional benefit when working on post-fire remediation contracts.
Kelly was very impressed with the design process, and the ongoing support he has received from Bejac and Tigercat. “I loved being involved in some of the design of the head and the machine. I mean, Tigercat machines are customer-built machines. Engineers design them, but they're built based off customer input. Having engineers that actually call you and want your feedback — that is huge to a customer like me.”
The LX825 hydraulic system is optimized for masticating, delivering high performance and production rates and excellent fuel economy. The TCi 4154-15 mulching head is perfectly matched to the carrier.
Tigercat district manager Rob Selby stresses that the dealers and end users are critical to the process. “I’ve been through a few of these projects over the years, where you work closely with the customer group, and the dealer group, as we're designing something. Those projects always work out well when you have a close group with lots of good input along the way. The dealer needs to pull in the right customers to let us have those discussions.”
LX825 in action
Sierra Pacific Industries is a fourth-generation, family-owned forest products company based in Anderson, California. The company owns over 2.4 million acres of timberland in California, Oregon and Washington, making it one of the largest private landowners and lumber producers in the country. As a progressive company, it offers up its forest lands for public use for the pursuit of recreational activities like hiking, cycling, fishing, hunting, and cross-country skiing.
The result of the commercial thinning is a shaded firebreak adjacent to the road. The Diversified Resources contract entails masticating the logging residual and thinning out the dense stand beyond the break (visible at bottom centre).
We visited a Sierra Pacific forest, where active logging was underway. This forest is a patchwork of clear fell and selective harvesting compartments along an extensive road network. Diversified Resources deployed the LX825 to a fuel reduction treatment that followed behind a commercial thinning operation to create a wide shaded firebreak on either side of the access road. The LX825 was masticating the brush, logging waste, and accumulated dead wood on the forest floor within the thinned-out stand. Additionally, the machine was penetrating the denser forest beyond the break to remove small nonmerchantable timber, understory and ladder fuel, enhancing the health of the forest and further strengthening it to defend against future wildfires.
Engineers design them, but they're built based off customer input. Having engineers that actually call you and want your feedback — that is huge to a customer like me.
— Kelly Holt
Incorporating fuel breaks into road systems is smart thinking and the most obvious way to make an immediate mitigation impact. Sierra Pacific’s proactive approach serves as a great model that could be applied to public lands. “The roads are already there, and the break just needs to be enhanced where it makes sense to do so,” Kelly explains. “It's on top of a ridge that comes up from the valley. You get wind driven fires coming up in the valley. So that's a good spot for defence for a fire.” The additional benefit comes from the fact it is people who generally start wildfires, and roads are generally where the people are. The strategy puts the strongest defences in the most high-risk locations.
Challenges
Forest management in California with the aim to restore health and mitigate against wildfire is probably more advanced than any other jurisdiction in North America. For example, Fire Safe Councils support communities in wildfire preparedness and resiliency through grant funding, program support, technical assistance, community outreach, planning, and mitigation activities like firebreaks to protect communities. Cal Fire, in addition to responding to fires, provides technical and financial assistance for private forest management, and offers vegetation management programs encompassing prescribed burns and mastication. The California Association of Resource Conservation Districts also supports the implementation of forest resilience projects.
However, to this day, massive swaths of land right outside of Chester contain nothing but dead standing trees, long past salvage value. “It's been five years since the Dixie fire, and I still have the hardest time driving into town,” says Traci.
“Our fires are getting so large that the wood only lasts for so long. So, when you have a million-acre fire, you have to go in there and cherry-pick it. You take the good stuff next to the road, where the cheapest logging cost is. When it goes bad, you just have to treat it somehow,” Kelly says. “A lot of it is state funded. These grants are available to private landowners to get as much of that forest on the ground as they can. Then they go through and replant it.”
At the federal level, we are trying to get the Forest Service to increase the scope of what they are doing in terms of timber sales and fuel reduction.
— Traci Holt
Even though California is at the forefront of forest management as a driver of greater forest resiliency, the mitigation model is based on a complex system of public funding and grants. Traci handles the back-office functions related to project management, grant writing, policy development, and compliance. Because the contracts are so often reliant on some form of government funding, another big part of the job for Traci is advocacy. “At the federal level, we are trying to get the Forest Service to increase the scope of what they are doing in terms of timber sales and fuel reduction. We’ve got a contingent back in D.C. right now that are speaking with the folks that have the power and the decision-making ability to accelerate the process on the west coast.”
Advocacy work must tackle several different issues and target groups. It is not just about fighting for budget, but overcoming established cultural norms within government, while also addressing and modifying public perception. It’s tough to overcome but important because public opinion influences government decision making. “You look at the Dixie Fire footprint around us, and there's a lot of standing dead timber,” says Kelly. “Well, it’s our national public lands where it's still standing, because they didn't do anything with it. They could have done something, but they chose not to for whatever reason. If you look at the private land — Sierra Pacific, Collins, Beatty — all of them got in and got the timber out while there was still value to it. Then they treated the land and replanted it.”
“Part of the advocacy work is getting the federal government to do the right thing with that land,” Traci adds. Deriving value from the timber salvage where possible could offset the cost of treatment solutions. The consequences of leaving the land untreated are significant — hazardous standing trees, erosion and water quality issues, and takeover by invasive species. Proactively logging and masticating — following the model of private land stewards like Sierra Pacific — funds fire prevention and presumably, a better future outcome for California’s forests.
Hands-on business owner. Kelly grew up in the industry. His practical knowledge, operating expertise and mechanical ability perfectly complement Traci’s strengths in project management, grant writing, policy development, compliance and advocacy.
There is the sense that public perception is beginning to shift as a result of the sheer number and size of the fires that California has experienced. As entire towns have been wiped off the map and stunning forestlands have been reduced to barren moonscapes, rigid environmental stances have begun to give way to more practical solutions. “It’s sad to say, but it's almost like you had to burn down Hollywood to open people’s eyes to the problems that we face,” says Traci.
Kelly worked on the Dixie fire. “I remember one night, over one twelve-hour shift, the fire grew over 100,000 acres. It was moving at 70 miles per hour.” At one point the fire reached Chester, coming very close to the Holts’ property and home, close enough that a woodpile and one of their flatbed trailer decks lit up. Traci was in phone contact with one of the company’s employees who was on the property. “I could hear it over the phone,” says Traci. “It was like a freight train in the background.”
Memories like these motivate Traci and Kelly. They are deeply invested. In a sense, their work is directly benefitting and protecting their own backyard. And the proof is there for anyone to see. Kelly can point to mitigation treatments that the company completed prior to the Dixie fire that are adjacent to untreated areas. The difference is stark. The treated forest survived and the untreated forest burned up. Kelly sums up. “As a family, generational business, what is really important to us is the quality of our work, our integrity, and being good stewards of the land. We're not just after a paycheque. We are after a reputation.”
