Prineville, Ore. – Favorable weather and wind conditions are allowing fuels specialists with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Prineville District Office to continuing with their winter prescribed burning program. Over the next several weeks, crews plan on working in four separate project areas.
Specialists will begin burning February 9th, along west side of Millican Road, 15 miles southwest of Prineville. Crews will burn about 500 acres of slash leftover from a juniper thinning and woodcutting project. The project should take five days to complete, and no road closures are expected. Smoke will be visible along Millican Road, and potentially from the Prineville Airport.
Crews will also begin burning 100 acres of hand piles about 12 miles south of Prineville near the Prineville Lake Acres subdivision. The material in the piles is also leftover from a juniper thinning and woodcutting project. Main roads in the area will be signed to inform residents of the burn and no road closures or delays are expected.
As conditions allow, crews will move to the High Desert Shrub Steppe Prescribed Burn Project 15 miles south of Brothers, Oregon. This 2250-acre project is expected to take two weeks to finish; however, poor winter road access may be a limiting factor. The goal of this project is to burn previously cut young juniper to help restore the traditional shrub steppe habitat. No road closures or delays are expected; however, the smoke from this project may be visible to vehicles driving through the area along Hwy. 20.
If the weather holds, crews will also work on the Tumalo/Ponderosa Pine project. The goal of this project is to burn about 265 acres of handpiles, three miles southwest of Tumalo, adjacent to Tumalo Reservoir Road. This area was previously thinned and material sold as timber or used for biomass. The project is expected to take up to five days to complete. No delays or road closures are expected; however, smoke may drift on to Tumalo Reservoir Road. The area will be signed to inform residents about the project.
All prescribed burning is highly dependent on favorable temperature, moisture and wind conditions. Each of these burns will be started when the conditions are right to meet the objectives of the burn and while minimizing smoke impacts to any nearby communities. All burn areas will be patrolled during and following ignitions and are done in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Forestry smoke management plan. More information is available at: http://blm.gov/wnmd
