Written collaboratively by Keith Hovorka and Sean Kelly.
Targeted grazing incorporated into an overall rotational grazing plan can be an excellent strategy to create firebreaks. Particularly in rough terrain, such as the Missouri River breaks. Grazing pastures near a burn unit to reduce the fuel load available for a fire will create a soft, or green, firebreak.
Figure 1 shows Keith Hovorka’s burn unit from this fall’s burn. He incorporated targeted grazing on the north and west sides of the unit to create a green firebreak for this fall’s burn. Due to the rough terrain on those sides of the unit, mowing a firebreak would have been extremely difficult.
Extreme care must be taken to ensure enough vegetation is removed to reduce the fuel load, but not so much that the range resource is permanently degraded. Those pastures used for the firebreak along with the pasture burned are incorporated into an overall grazing plan for the ranch to ensure adequate rest for the pastures to recover.
