Ranching in the Pacific Northwest means you get comfortable with extremes.
High elevations, severe winters, large allotments and mountainous, rocky surfaces intermixed with timber forests โ all of it adds up to an ecosystem that can put up a fight to infrastructure-building for effective grazing management.
And thatโs before you add in the wildfires.
In 2024, 1.9 million acres burned in the state of Oregon alone โ the state where Dean Defrees manages his generational ranch.
Each fire season, Defrees watches the wildfires around him inch closer and closer, remembering the one year where they destroyed nearly everything.
โIn the โ80s, we were logging our timberland โ about 1,100 acres,โ he recalls. โIn 1986, the part we had not harvested yet was burned in a forest fire and it wiped us out timber-wise. That really got us interested in fireproofing the rest of the property a bit more.โ
Defrees put his cattle to work, factoring in his 1,500-acre timberland forest allotments into his whole-ranch rotational grazing plan.
