BLM to begin winter prescribed burning across C.O.
With snow in Central Oregon, fuels specialists with the Bureau of Land Management Prineville District will be beginning their winter prescribed burning program on Monday.
By reducing excess material from thinning projects, most of these prescribed fires are intended to reduce the size and intensity of wildfires in the area.
The following prescribed burns are scheduled for this winter:
La Pine State Park: On Monday, November 30, crews are planning on burning about 15 acres of woody debris piles in La Pine State Park, on the west side of the Deschutes River. Although no roads will be closed and no delays are expected, smoke may be visible to travelers on Highway 97 north of La Pine. The project is expected to take less than a day to complete.
Tumalo Canal: Beginning in early December, crews are planning on burning 533 acres of hand piles in the Cline Buttes area, about 8 miles southwest of Redmond. The actual day of the burn is dependent on weather and on particular wind conditions that would push smoke away from Bend, Redmond or Sisters. No road closures or delays are expected but smoke will be seen and may impact Cline Falls Highway north of Barr Road for short durations. If visibility is compromised, burning will be discontinued. The project will take 4-6 days to complete, and the area will be patrolled following ignitions.
Prineville Lake Acres: Crews are planning to burn 100 acres of hand piles south of Prineville and north of Prineville Reservoir, near Upper Davis Loop Road. The burns will occur sometime in December or January. Smoke will be a concern and limiting factor and specialists will plan on working on days where wind would be expected to move smoke away from Prineville. There will be no traffic delays or road closures and the burn should take two days to complete.
Bridge Creek Agriculture Fields: Crews will be burning 100 acres on three BLM agricultural fields west of Mitchell along Bridge Creek. Two fields are near the Mitchell ODOT station and one field is along the Burnt Ranch Road mile south of the Priest Hole Road.
The prescribed fires will be conducted between early December to late January, when conditions are dry enough to allow the fields to burn, but cool enough to limit the potential for fire to spread beyond the fields.
The burns are expected to up to three days to complete, and there are no expected impacts from smoke or and road closures. While many prescribed burns are conducted to reduce wildfire risk, these areas are burned during the dormant season to increase grass and forbs for wildlife, clear the fields for preparation for seeding and planting and eliminate weeds such as knapweed, Russian thistle and poison hemlock.
Agricultural fields consist of many different types of cover, they include: perennial grass, dry land food and cover plots, wild rye and cottonwood plantations.
High Desert Shrub Steppe Prescribed Fire: Crews will take advantage of winter weather conditions to ignite 2,250 total acres south of Brothers, near Fox Butte Road.
Due to the remote location, smoke impacts will be minimal, although it may be visible from Highway 20. The project is expected to take up to two weeks to complete, and most likely will occur in February and March 2016. These burns are planned to burn juniper trees that were cut to help restore the traditional shrub-steppe community in this part of the high desert.
All controlled burns are completed in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Forestry smoke management plan. Prescribed burns designed to reduce hazardous fuels meet the recommendations put forth in the Upper Deschutes, Redmond or Crook County Community Wildfire Protection Plans, which describe opportunities to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire in urban interface areas. For more information about prescribed burning, please contact the Prineville BLM at (541) 416-6700.
