Photo by BRANDON MCMULLEN

Aerial application of pre-emergent herbicide being applied August 2022.

By Scott Barton
for Burns Times-Herald

One year ago, February 2022, the Harney County Wildfire Collaborative received $5 million from the Oregon Department of Forestry as part of Senate Bill 762 to address fire suppression, prevention, and restoration of sagebrush sea landscape in Harney and Malheur counties. Named the Southeast Oregon Wildfire Resiliency Project (SOWR Project), the effort brings partners together to implement actions on the ground to build a more wildfire-resilient landscape.
Oregon Department of Forestry recently allocated an additional $410,713 for Harney County Wildfire Collaborative partners to do additional wildfire resilience treatments.

Josh Hanson, High Desert Partnerships’s forest and range ecological coordinator, is supporting the Harney County Wildfire Collaborative as it implements the SOWR Project.

He said, “A big goal for the partners is managing invasive annual grasses and treating them where we would have the highest return on investment due to funding timelines. This builds wildfire resiliency by decreasing fine fuels that would carry a fire quickly across a landscape.”

He added that, “By targeting these invasive annual grasses, we can help increase firefighters’ ability to extinguish a fire, increase perennial bunchgrass (which we want) by decreasing the competition of the annual grasses, and decrease the fire intensity if a fire does go through this landscape.”

Accomplishments

Within the parameters of the SOWR Project, the partners achieved the following in 2022:

• Aerial applications of pre-emergent herbicide applied to 70,908 acres of private, tribal, state, and federal land to inhibit germination of invasive annual grasses.

• Contracted juniper cutting and pile burning on 837 acres. This effort is essential for protecting sage grouse habitat and reducing fuel loads.

• Seeding 300 acres with grasses and shrub seeds, following an invasive grass herbicide application.

• The collection and cleaning of native plant seeds from strategic sites in both Harney and Malheur counties. The next step is to collaborate with landowners to grow the hand-collected seeds for future restoration efforts.

• Continual collaboration amongst Harney County Wildfire Collaborative partners on ongoing project progress, what comes next, issues, and opportunities.

Funding in action

Here is a sampling of efforts underway by the collaborative partners who are implementing the work:

• Tom Segal is a wildlife biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Through the SOWR Project, he’s working hand-in-hand with a landowner in the Juntura area to treat thousands of acres of invasive annual grasses in what is prime sage grouse habitat. More specifically, they’re targeting cheatgrass and medusahead rye with herbicide that prevents them from germinating, while also allowing perennial grasses, forbes, and shrubs to grow without competition. Through these treatments, the landscape will be more resistant to wildfire, habitat will improve for wildlife, and livestock will have increased forage in the future.

• Brandon Palmer is the wildlife program manager with the Burns Paiute Tribe. Much of the work he has done in conjunction with the SOWR Project is at the Malheur River Wildlife Mitigation Site, which also called Jonesboro. The 6,385-acre piece of land is owned by the Tribe and is home to one of the highest density mule deer winter ranges in Oregon. Elk also use the property in the winter. They sprayed for annual grasses on this range and will be re-seeding an area with a native seed mix. This past July, the Tribe also treated 500 acres of grasslands in the Crowley Priority Area for Conservation for invasive annual grasses. These efforts will help improve habitat for species like sage grouse, while also making the landscape more resistant to fire.

• Jason Kesling, the district manager for the Harney Soil and Water Conservation District, oversaw juniper cutting on more than 800 acres of private land at the northern end of the Stinkingwater Range.

• Tyler Goss, cooperative weed management coordinator for the Harney Soil and Water Conservation District, coordinated with landowners to treat medusahead rye on private lands throughout Harney County. In 2022, Goss oversaw the treatment of more than 15,000 acres of private lands.

Looking forward

Money received from Senate Bill 762 and allocated for the SOWR Project has to be used by June of 2023. Some specific plans for the next five months include:

• ODFW will treat an additional 2,000 acres of invasive annual grasses near Riverside.

• According to Palmer, the Burns Paiute Tribe plans to spread seed purchased with SOWR funds. The Tribe will aerially seed a mix of locally adapted perennial grasses, forbes, and Wyoming big sagebrush. The Tribe is also working with researchers from the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center on a study to determine the efficacy of these large-scale aerial treatments.

• The Harney Soil and Water Conservation District will work with the Burns Bureau of Land Management to treat roughly 1,600 additional acres with juniper cutting and burning and will spray more than 1,400 private acres of invasive weeds.

Important work

Southeast Oregon boasts some of the most remote country in the West. Each treatment implemented by partners within the Harney County Wildfire Collaborative is improving the wildfire resiliency of this fragile landscape.