Volunteers helping sagebrush, wildflowers grow where fires burned

After the Hansen Road fire burned along the hills just outside Benton City in southeastern Washington this past summer, signs of life are slowly springing back up from the blackened ground – now with some help from the region’s Native Plant Society.

“It looks like the grasses for the most part seem to be coming back from the fire because they were already dormant,” said Mickey Chamness, with the society. “It was starting to grow again already. So, I think that a lot of things that were dormant are going to have survived fine.”

About 30 volunteers met up at a local hiking hotspot on a cold November afternoon to replant sagebrush tubelings and scatter seeds on a small section of the burn scar. The digging boundary was marked with red flags.

“We can't plant up [outside of the boundary]. Archaeologically, it’s not allowed because Native Americans may have used the area, and it hasn't been surveyed,” Chamness said.

The tiny yearling sagebrush stretch about an inch tall, their roots reaching about five inches down. The group aimed to plant 30 sagebrush and a few rabbitbrush. They also planned to spread sagebrush, bitterroot and wildflower seeds, squashing them into gopher mounds.