Think Out Loud

Fires have burned nearly 500,000 acres of BLM land in Eastern Oregon

By Sage Van Wing (OPB)
Sept. 20, 2024 4:42 p.m.

Broadcast: Friday, Sept. 20

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The Bureau of Land Management administers 16 million acres of land across Oregon and Washington, and wildfires burned a large swath of that land this summer, including nearly half a million acres in Eastern Oregon. For ranchers who lease BLM rangeland for their cattle, that can mean that new leases will be hard to find. The fires also threatened other uses of the land, including logging, recreation, and wildlife protection. Rebecca Carter is responsible for managing rangeland for the BLM in Oregon and Washington and for leading fire recovery efforts. She joins us to discuss how the agency is facing this summer’s fire season.

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Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. This has been a record-setting year for wildfires in Oregon, with over two million acres burned. More than a quarter of that is under the control of the Bureau of Land Management. It’s been a huge challenge for ranchers who have grazing leases. The fires have also threatened other users of the land including logging, recreators and wildlife protection. Rebecca Carter is responsible for managing rangeland for the BLM in Oregon and Washington. She also leads fire recovery efforts and she joins us now. It’s great to have you on the show.

Rebecca Carter: Great to be here. Thank you.

Miller: I gave just that quick number there, more than a quarter of that land, so about half a million acres of BLM land burnt. Can you just give us a sense for the scale of rangeland wildfires this year?

Carter: Well, this is a pretty unique year. One of the most unprecedented, I suppose, would be a good word. And I’m working currently on 30 fires that have impacted six of our districts across BLM lands. So I’m working on 30 recovery plans and that includes lots of different treatments.

Miller: Are any fires still burning?

Carter: Yes, there are several fires that are still burning and not contained. In fact, many of these fires won’t be officially contained until snow flies.

Miller: Total acreage tells us something. And as you said, it’s historic, it’s unprecedented, but it’s not the full picture. What has the severity of these various fires been like?

Carter: Well, it’s been a mix. Not all these fires have burned severely. Some of them have been minimally burned. So, the landscape looks pretty patchy. It’s not all black.

Miller: We talked a few weeks ago with Matt McElligott, the president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association and a rancher himself. I want to play you part of what he had to say about the damage he’s heard about livestock.

Matt McElligott [recording]: What we don’t know yet is how many cattle have been lost and we won’t know that for a while. A lot of this is big country. So the firefighters, the ranchers were cutting fences, opening gates, moving cattle out of the fire area and it didn’t really matter where they were moving it to just as long as it was away from the flames. So they’re scattered out for miles. Some cattle are lost to the fire. Some have burnt udders, if there were cows, and burnt feet on calves and cows, and smoke inhalation that’ll cause lung damage.

Miller: Does the federal government, the BLM in particular, have any role to play in what he’s talking about there? I’m thinking specifically about, say, finding missing cattle or assessing the level of loss?

Carter: We wouldn’t do that specifically for the ranchers. We’re going to be assessing the land and determining any imminent threats to human life, safety, cultural resources and critical values. And then once our emergency stabilization efforts – which usually takes about a year – are finished, then we work on the ecological recovery of the burned areas which can take up to like five years. But we don’t really help specifically with cows, other than allowing them to cut the fences and we will repair fences post-fire.

Miller: What options do ranchers have right now? If land that they’ve leased maybe for years and that they had been counting on for grazing, if they’ve been burned, if those lands have been burned and cannot be used for grazing right now?

Carter: The BLM, all the range management staff and managers stationed across Oregon and Washington, communicate daily with the permitees and leasees, and they’re working together on maybe some voluntary adjustments within the terms of existing agreements to minimize impacts on operators to the maximum extent possible. We have a few forage reserves or grass banks available that we can use. We’re also coordinating very closely with all of our other federal partners including the US Forest Service, the Natural Resource Conservation Service and the Farm Service Agency to ensure that all available federal resources and tools are considered when addressing the still unfolding number of issues related to wildland fire.

Miller: Is there enough non-burned, not-already-leased federal land that is appropriate for grazing that you could temporarily shift folks onto?

Carter: Yeah. There could be. Like I said, that’s going to be up to the local folks to be coordinating those efforts.

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Miller: What role does the Farm Service Agency play in all of these efforts?

Carter: Well, I can’t speak to the Farm Service Agency. I just know that they have many programs available. And we are having town hall meetings. I know Burns and Vale specifically have had those meetings with the local community, and Farm Service Agency has been present and offering the ranchers the programs that are available to them.

Miller: As you said at the beginning, you’re, it’s not the BLM’s job to look for cows or calves. You’re focused on the land. So what are the big questions you have as an agency post-fire about the health of these ecosystems?

Carter: So, like I said before, we’re going to go in and address, within the first year, the most imminent threats to life, safety, critical resources. So that would be, for example, we’re gonna be cutting down all of the hazard trees along roadways or in campgrounds. And then after that, we’re going to be applying some treatments to jumpstart that ecological recovery for any of the lands that will be unlikely to recover naturally.

Miller: What does treatment entail?

Carter: So we have lots of tools in our toolbox, but usually we try to knock back the annual grass and the invasive weeds first with herbicide. And then we may apply some seeding. We do aerial seeding and drill seeding, whatever is appropriate for the terrain and elevation.

Miller: For folks just who don’t have a deep understanding of these sagebrush landscapes and this huge vast expanse of rangeland, it might sound a little bit counterintuitive after a fire to be applying herbicides. Why do you do that?

Carter: The herbicide applied would basically kill any of the seeds or source of annual grass that’s going to come up, so that the native species that were present – or non-native species, I mean, we have some crest of wheatgrass eating out there too – whatever native or non native species were present pre-fire would have a chance to then come in naturally.

Miller: And it’s because these annual grasses could, then, just become dry fodder for a fighter the next time?

Carter: Yes, they’re very flammable fuels. We want to reduce those. And it changes. That’s not our main concern. We want to make sure that there’s a great ecological balance that supports all of our many resources with our ranchers, the livestock industry, but also the wildlife species and everything. We have many resources to consider.

Miller: With so many acres burned, do you have enough resources to do all the treatments that you’re talking about, whether it is planting native grasses, or doing herbicide, or getting rid of hazard trees? I mean, we’re talking about so much land.

Carter: Yes. Do we have enough resources? Well, we have very passionate folks that are working very hard to do what they can with the resources that they do have, the staff. And we will bring in experts if we need to to help in any way.

Miller: From the conversations we’ve had in the past, it seems very possible that there will be more fire seasons like this one in the years to come. And we’ve talked about that as a result of climate change, invasive grasses and a history of fire suppression. Could that lead to a change in the way the BLM handles grazing permits or leases going forward? I guess in particular, I’m wondering if you think you’re going to have to keep more land just in abeyance in case you have to move cattle over?

Carter: Yeah, we are always looking for opportunities to have those for forage reserves. And as we do our land health assessments and determine which areas maybe are vacant already, we are definitely working towards providing flexibility within our grazing program.

Miller: But are you imagining in particular keeping more land in those reserves in the future?

Carter: Where we can. You know, a lot of our land already has permitees and leasees on it. Unfortunately, yeah, we don’t have a lot of leftovers.

Miller: Rebecca Carter, thanks very much.

Carter: Yeah.

Miller: Rebecca Carter is a ranged land management specialist for the BLM in Oregon and Washington, also the emergency stabilization and burned area rehab lead.

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