Decades of fuel treatments on BLM lands helped stop the Darlene 3 fire that threatened La Pine ‘in its tracks,’ agency says

The fuel reduction work, together with the rapid intervention of the firefighters, “prevented the fire from reaching the city”

PRINEVILLE, Ore. (KTVZ) — A week ago, the Darlene 3 wildfire broke out on public lands near the community of La Pine. “Thankfully, decades of land treatments by the Bureau of Land Management helped stop the fire,” the agency said Tuesday.

The Darlene 3 Fire started on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 25, in Deschutes County. By Thursday, it had grown to more than 3,000 acres, the BLM said in a news release.

The western flank of the fire moved toward the town of La Pine, home to more than 2,000 people and located 30 miles southwest of Bend.

“Decades of intensive fire suppression in the area by the BLM’s Prineville District Fire and Aviation Management Division and its partners, along with rapid response by local fire crews, prevented the fire from reaching the city,” the agency said.

“This result is the result of a series of fuel treatments, not just one,” said James Osborne, BLM Prineville District fire management officer. “The intensive fuel treatments around the town of La Pine over many years have been very effective in stopping previous fires, as well as this one. We continue to see that benefit.”

“The Bureau of Land Management has been working on this since the 1980s, long before they were called fuel treatments,” said Rob Fore, fuels program manager for the BLM’s Prineville District. “But in recent years, we’ve taken a more strategic approach. We’re very intentional about the type of fuel treatments we use and where they’re placed on the landscape.”

These intentional treatments include hand thinning, mowing, chewing, and prescribed burning. BLM crews have recently conducted hand thinning, or winter stacking of material for burning later in 2021.

Preventing forest fires is not the only goal of fuel treatments.

“Treatments don’t just reduce hazardous fuels to help firefighters protect communities,” said Alison Dean, fire ecologist with the BLM Prineville District. “They also help restore historical fire regimes and ecological health to the forest. They help forests regain their resilience to insect infestations and climate change, as well as future fires.”

The work doesn’t stop after one success. In addition to continued community engagement with firefighting partners in Central Oregon, the BLM said its firefighting and aviation crews will continue to work the land.

“The longevity of these treatments is ten to fifteen years maximum,” Dean said. “They need maintenance. The brush will come back.”

“We have been and will continue to conduct maintenance work around La Pine,” Osborne said. “We plan to continue maintenance treatments and begin new treatments on our own and with our partners.”

To help prevent wildfires, learn more about fire restrictions from the Oregon/Washington Bureau of Land Management.