In recent years, wildfire has become an increasing disturbance of sagebrush ecosystems in the Western United States. While these lands evolved with fire, in recent years, fires have started earlier in the growing season and have increased in intensity.

Much of this change is attributed to increased non-native annual grasses, mainly cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae).

Cattle grazing is a good tool to reduce or manage the amount of fire fuel in an area. With the development of virtual fencing, it may become easier to see where the animals graze and how much forage they remove.

A team of scientists conducted a study in southeastern Oregon to test the use of virtual fencing in establishing fire breaks. The team included Chad Boyd, Rory O’Connor, Jon Bates, and Kirk Davies from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Service in Burns, Ore.; Juliana Ranches, David Bohnert and Dustin Johnson from Oregon State University in Burns; Todd Parker from Vence Corp. in San Diego, Calif.; and Kevin Doherty from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service in Lakewood, Colo.

The purpose of fire breaks is partly to create fuel conditions that can slow or halt the spread of fire, but the predominant reason is to provide a safe space for fire operations personnel to stage and conduct fire suppression activities.

Vence Corp. designed and manufactured the virtual fence system used in this study.

The study was conducted within a fenced 1,013 acre pasture at the Northern Great Basin Experimental Range, about 55 miles west of Burns.

This study showed that fuel breaks are an important tool for managing the spread of wildfires in large rangeland areas of the western United States. Their importance is growing due to the increasing presence of wildfires in these landscapes.

Cattle grazing is an effective way to manage fuel and reduce the impact of fires on these large rangelands.

This study also shows that virtual fencing is effective in confining grazing to the targeted areas and accomplishing the desired fuel reduction.

The study agrees with a growing body of evidence indicating that virtual fencing is effective for various livestock management applications. One study showed that virtual fencing effectively kept livestock out of sensitive riparian areas. Another showed the effectiveness of virtual fencing in excluding livestock from burned sagebrush steppe rangeland.

An additional study showed that virtual fencing effectively controls the grazing distribution of dairy cattle.

Virtual fencing offers a system that influences cattle distribution to manage fine fuels inside fuel break boundaries. Its advantage over permanent fencing is that it can be easily changed as the need for fuel breaks changes. Virtual fencing allows managers to make needed changes without investing in permanent infrastructure, such as standard wire fencing.