Written by Karl J. Findling, President, Friends of Hart Mountain
Photos by Karl J. Findling
With a bit of time and sense of adventure, Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge (Hart) can be found in Lake County of eastern Oregon, 65 miles northeast of Lakeview or 120 miles southwest of Burns in Harney County. The refuge encompasses a prominent, rugged fault-block ridge which rises steeply about ¾ of a mile above the sweeping valley wetlands and meadows below. Surrounding and throughout the refuge is a wide expanse of sensitive and critically threatened sagebrush steppe habitat.
Wildfires impacting our arid, and semi-arid landscapes, each summer are naturally occurring since time began. However, the summer of 2024 saw record acreages charred across much of the high desert of Oregon. Hart experienced the largest recorded fire on the refuge in modern history with the Warner Peak Fire which spread across 45,000 acres.
In eastern Oregon, Lake and Harney counties are reported to be among the fastest warming regions in America, and the fastest in Oregon1. The sagebrush biome that spreads across this landscape, is the among the most threatened ecosystems in North America. Most wildland fires are driven by increases in invasive annual grasses, hot/dry summer conditions, and extreme fire behavior (namely high temperatures, low humidity, and high winds).
From an ecological standpoint, fire is beneficial to the sagebrush biome. However, fires can also be a threat to this ecosystem. In some cases, old growth sagebrush stands can take half-a-century, and up to a century to recover. Post-fire conditions can pose a serious threat with opportunistic annual grasses invading ahead of the native perennial flora. The increase in introduced, annual grasses shift fuel loads and can make fires occur more often than typical. Climate change studies have used spatial imaging is used to show ecological transitions or detect undesirable changes in vegetation structure and composition. So, is a warming planet leading to huge shifts in plant communities? Scientists are closely watching these changes.
Just this spring, two employees from Hart, and myself, attended a first-of-its-kind wildfire rehabilitation class, taught by Oregon State University Extension Service, held at the Northern Great Basin Experimental Range. The two-day course involved field studies, and classroom exercises using newly acquired satellite data, to drive the rehabilitation processes on the ground.
Today, on the refuge, there are multiple team members working on everything from invasive annual grasses, noxious weeds, and varied wildlife habitat restoration processes all as part of a 5-year fire response plan known as Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) and outlines efforts that focus on the restoration of large swaths of the refuge. Just as the science is learning about these large rangeland fires, and their recovery, so is the science of restoration efforts.
One of the more unique rehabilitation processes is the Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LT-PBR). LT-PBR are namely man-made beaver dams, called Beaver Dam Analogs (BDA), and Post-Assisted Log Structures, or PAL’s.
On the ground 5 BAER crew members are tackling the deployment of up to 200 Beaver Dam Analogs (BDA). These structures provide several benefits and create a starting point for reintroducing beavers to the refuge. Each specific structure is carefully planned and spaced throughout a watershed to provide water for growing willow (beaver food). These man-made structures, redirect water, spreading it out, slowing spring run-off, and deepening the water table, mimicking natural beaver dams.
The opportunity to record and document the recovery process is appealing to many who are studying these types of fires; just as the refuge was a laboratory for restoration after livestock removal thirty years ago. Researchers are working diligently to understand what is successful, and what isn’t, and why.
At Hart Mountain, we will see nature at work into the future, in the restoration of the refuge. There is hope in many locations on the mountain.
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