Photo by Linda Watts, BLM

August sunrise from Highway 78, just before the start of noxious weed spraying in the area. More than 35,500 acres of public lands were aerial treated in Harney County in 2022.

Federal workers at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) tallied numerous accomplishments for your public lands in 2022!

After two long years of COVID-19 precautions and periodic teleworking, we returned to the office in the spring. We watched some employees retire or move on to other opportunities and welcomed several others to our community. We participated in outdoor days for middle school students at Page Springs Campground and fourth graders at Idlewild. We joined partners in supporting the annual Harney County Migratory Bird Festival and Skull Gravel Grinder bike races and helped Malheur National Wildlife Refuge with their “Great Carp Roundup of 2022”.

Here are some other highlights, by the numbers:

• Responded to 47 wildfires within the Burns Interagency Fire Zone (BIFZ) – 25 lightning-caused for 701 acres and 22 human-caused for 254 acres. The first fire of the season was on March 23. Thirteen percent of fires for the entire season (six) came on one day (Aug. 2).

• The Burns Airtanker Base supported 32 incidents. The base loaded Single Engine Air Tankers 220 times and delivered 148,068 gallons of mixed retardant.

• Welcomed one new Rangeland Fire Protection Association (RFPA) — North Harney — to the BIFZ. All seven Harney County RFPAs signed a new working agreement and operating plan.

• Held nine in-person RFPA trainings for 137 attendees.

• Went to 10 different states on numerous wildfire and prescribed fire/fuels assignments. High points include the Mark Twain National Forest, four weeks in Alaska for Burns Helitack, and several days on the 20,000-acre Leilani Fire on the Big Island of Hawaii for the Malheur Refuge Crew.

• Participated in eight recruiting and hiring events throughout Oregon.

• Shared wildland fire prevention and preparedness education at 23 community events, parades, carnivals, and school activities.

• Administered 174 grazing permits for 29,151 livestock. Monitored 656,988 acres in 26 grazing allotments for rangeland health.

• Between the BIFZ and BLM Burns District, hosted or participated in more than 30 cooperative sessions with Harney County Wildfire Collaborative, Harney County [Forest] Restoration Collaborative, Harney Basin Wetlands Initiative, Southeast Oregon Resource Advisory Council, Harney County Grazing Advisory Board, Steens Mountain Advisory Council, Harney County Court, Burns Paiute Tribe, Grant-Harney Fire Prevention Co-Op, Harney County Fire Defense board, County Community Wildfire Protection Plan Working Group, and Harney County Natural Resource Advisory Council.

• At Oregon’s Off-Range Wild Horse Holding Facility in Hines, received 791 horses gathered from public lands, and placed more than 700 wild horses and burros into private care or long-term holding through adoption, sale, or transport.

• Collected $51,144 in overnight camping fees across the district.

• Installed electronic payment options at two campgrounds on Steens Mountain.

• Issued 18 Special Recreation Permits and eight Rights-Of-Way.

• Pumped 32 vault restrooms for more than 35,000 gallons of waste!

• Maintained eight miles of recreation trails and too-many-miles-to-count of public roads.

• Spoke on Harney County Live (radio) eight times and printed 52 articles in the Burns Times-Herald (newspaper). What would you like to hear from us in 2023?

• Welcomed six appointees to the Steens Mountain Advisory Council: Teresa Wicks, Karen Withrow, Butch Goette, Pete Runnels, Terry Turner, and Mike Fox.

• Cleaned out nearly two dozen reservoirs across the district.

• Hosted three National Public Lands Day events and supported eight volunteer hosts at Riddle Brothers Ranch and Page Springs Campground for nine months and more than 2,500 hours of service.

• For noxious weeds, aerial-treated 35,680 acres; ground-treated 242 acres; surveyed 7,047 acres; and monitored approximately 49,000 acres.

• Supported more than 360 subscriber radios — including 61 radio property transfers involving more than 75 assets — for wildland fire, internal and external law enforcement, and search and rescue, among others.

• Maintained 35 pieces of agency communication infrastructure including repeaters, base stations, towers, dispatch consoles, microwave links, and other supporting equipment.

• Implemented the Dry Mountain Salvage Project for 260,000 board feet (approximately 450-500 trees) of merchantable timber.

• Completed more than 13,000 acres of fuels treatments (under burning, broadcast burning, pile burning, cutting and piling, seeding), including 5,695 acres at Diamond Swamp and Buena Vista on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

• Answered 47 million phone calls about whether the Steens Mountain Loop Road was open/closed for the season. (OK, it wasn’t quite 47 million, but close!)

This list just barely scratches the surface of all we were able to tackle in 2022. Thank you for a great year, Harney County. We appreciate your continued support of public lands!