Five Creeks
Five Creeks Site
| Location: | Malhuer County on Steens Mountain southeast of Burns, OR |
| Land Management Agency: | Bureau of Land Management Burns District Office |
| SageSTEP Site Manager: | Scott Shaff |
| Plots: | Two extensive plots (2370-acre control and 1521-acre burn) |
| Elevation: | 5300 to 6300 ft |
| Topography: | Extensive fire plot has a NW aspect with slope ranging from 0 to 45 percent. Extensive control plot has SE and W aspects with slope ranging from 0 to 14 percent |
| Common Vegetation: | Western juniper, mountain big sagebrush, low sagebrush, Sandberg bluegrass, Idaho fescue, squirrel tail |
| Soils: | Clayey, smectitic, frigid, Lithic Argixeroll. Loamy-skelatal, mixed superactive, frigid, Pachic Haploxerolls. Fine to very fine, smectitic Pachic and Vertic Argicryolls. Shallow to very deep and well drained |
| Fire Regime: | The majority of the mountain big sagebrush alliance burned with frequent to moderately frequent (10-70 years) low intensity to mixed severity fires (Miller and Tausch 2001). Prior to the 1900, fires maintained plant communities as grasslands, shrub steppe grasslands, and lightly wooded savannahs. Woodland invasion into these communities suggests that the majority of these communities have not burned since the late 1800s. As woodlands gain dominance the fire regime shifts to infrequent high intensity fires. Fuel loads in closed woodlands can be as high as 40 tons/ha, an increase of over 4-fold compared to shrub steppe communities (Johnson and Miller 2004). |
| Representative Land Base: | Over several million acres in eastern Oregon, northeastern California, southwestern Idaho, and northwestern Nevada |
| Grazing: | Plots are located within an active grazing allottment. |
| Treatments Implemented: | Large plot (1000 acre) prescribed fire implemented in 2008. NOTE: This site studied for wildfire (birds) only. |
Updated 2009
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