Seattle Company Buries Dead Trees to Fight Climate Change

Millions of dead trees from Montana's wildfires are getting a second life underground, and it's proving to be a climate solution that actually works.

Mast Reforestation, a Seattle company, just sold its first carbon credits after burying over 10 million pounds of fire-killed trees in southern Montana. The buried wood locks carbon underground for at least a century, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it would contribute to global warming.

The approach marks a major turnaround for the company. A decade ago, Mast started as DroneSeed, using drones to drop seed pods and regrow forests in burn zones. But planted seedlings died at unexpected rates and grew slower than hoped, making it hard to guarantee the carbon savings they promised.

So the company pivoted to something more reliable. Instead of betting on new trees to grow, they're preventing carbon from escaping dead ones.

The method works by excavating underground chambers and filling them with burnt tree trunks and branches. Mast monitors the storage sites to ensure emissions don't leak out. They've set up a "permanence trust" to fund monitoring for the next hundred years.

Corporate buyers love the certainty. Companies like Royal Bank of Canada are paying premium prices for these removal credits because they offer near-guaranteed climate benefits. In a market plagued by fraud and inflated promises, that reliability matters.

The Bright Side

The biomass burial approach solves multiple problems at once. It clears dangerous dead wood from wildfire zones, reducing future fire risks. It provides jobs in rural communities affected by forest fires. And it turns a liability into an asset.

Mast completed its Montana project in just nine months from excavation to credit sale, remarkably fast for carbon projects. The 4,277 credits represent real, verified carbon storage happening right now, not decades in the future.

The company still plants trees at burial sites as a bonus for landowners. But now they're not relying on those saplings to make their climate math work.

Mast's patient investors stuck with the company through years of trial and error, including a $25 million funding round last year. That faith is paying off as the voluntary carbon market matures and buyers demand higher quality credits.

The approach could spread to other wildfire-affected regions across the western United States, where millions more dead trees wait on fire-scarred hillsides.

Sometimes the best climate solution isn't growing something new, but protecting what's already there.