Outreach ESR Extensive

The sagebrush steppe is a unique ecosystem in the Western United States that is threatened by invasive annual grasses and increasingly frequent wildfires. The Fire, Invasion, and Ecology in Sagebrush Steppe (FIREss) team, along with other state and federal agencies, works to find ways to mitigate the impact of fire on the landscape. After a fire, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) uses Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation (ESR) funds to prevent land degradation and to help establish a sagebrush steppe that is resistant and resilient to disturbances. Land managers foster a resistant and resilient sagebrush steppe by seeding native species and using herbicides to temporarily control exotic annual grasses (EAGs). Predicting the outcomes of land treatments can be difficult because these landscapes vary greatly in weather, water availability and topography. The FIREss team works to determine where, when, and why land treatments will be successful in establishing perennial vegetation that resist invasion.