Photo By Aaron Perkins | Rhande Shaw (center), a Natural Resource Specialist with the Oregon Military...... read more read more
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REDMOND, Ore. - After the recent 460-acre McCaffery fire at the Oregon National Guard Biak Training Center on Bureau of Land Management lands in central Oregon that left parts of the landscape bare, six employees of the Oregon Military Department, along with four volunteers from the BLM and 25 cadet volunteers from the Oregon Youth Challenge Program set to work in restoration efforts on the morning of Oct. 11, 2024.
In celebration of National Public Lands Day, the volunteers participated in trash clean up, filling a 30-yard bin of trash pick-up across BLM lands, planted 100 sagebrush plugs in a 17-acre plot within Biak. Also planted was 500 pounds of native grass seed spread within the fire scar of Biak and BLM property.
“National Public Lands Day is the single largest volunteer event across the country. This year alone there are about 700," said Rhande Shaw, a Natural Resource specialist with the Oregon Military Department. Shaw said, “Our main focus will be restoring our burn scar and establishing habitat for pollinators and doing some garbage cleanup on the lands surrounding Biak.”
In the western regions of the U.S., shrub-steppe landscapes are degrading rapidly due to climate impacts and human caused wildfires aided by the presence of a highly invasive grass, Bromus tectorum or cheatgrass. This particular grass after a forest fire will restore itself rapidly into a monoculture, out-competing native species for resources.
“Cheatgrass is an invasive species from Eurasia, which has consistently taken over the western side of the United States," said Morgan Davis, a Natural Resource specialist and Fire Effects Monitor with the Oregon Military Department. “We hope to plant more native species (Big Sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata) that will hopefully get a leg up and fight against the cheatgrass encroachment.”
Cheatgrass provides minimal resources for pollinators and wildlife that rely on native sagebrush and other native species for food and shelter. Long term, transformation from sagebrush to cheatgrass poses a great ecological risk as well as a significantly increased future fire risk.
Besides invasive plant reduction, the native planting will help with dust mitigation and erosion near the training sites range control building, provide habitat for pollinators, and other wildlife such as squirrels, rabbits, and other rodents in the area. Restoration of the site aligns with training needs for the Oregon Army National Guard, conservation initiatives of the Department of Defense, and military readiness, which provides a pro-active approach in the management of Biak Training Center.
The Oregon Military Department has another volunteer event at Camp Rilea, near Warrenton, Oregon in March of 2025. Efforts will be focused on invasive species management and coastal restoration.
| Date Taken: | 10.17.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.17.2024 16:54 |
| Story ID: | 483379 |
| Location: | REDMOND, OREGON, US |
| Web Views: | 54 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Post-fire Restoration Efforts at Biak Training Center, by Aaron Perkins, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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