A barbed wire fence cuts through dead sagebrush on a stretch of U.S. 395 outside of Burns, Ore., on Dec. 18, 2025. “I think there was an attempt to come in here and start what I like to say was a second ‘Sagebrush Rebellion’,” said Tim Callahan, the former Harney County district attorney during the occupation. “That didn't happen here. And I think a lot of that was because of the work that had been done in this community before then,”
Eli Imadali / OPB
On Jan. 2, 2016, a dozen armed anti-government militants led by Ammon Bundy and his brother, Ryan, took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters outside of Burns in Harney County. The 41-day siege at the bird sanctuary in rural Eastern Oregon attracted national and international media attention. On Jan. 26, one of the militants, Arizona rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, died during an armed confrontation with the FBI and Oregon State Police. Law enforcement also arrested the Bundys and several of their supporters that day, although prosecutors failed to secure convictions of the Bundys and five other defendants during a trial in the fall.
OPB legal affairs reporter Conrad Wilson and OPB visual journalist Eli Imadali recently traveled to Harney County to see how the Malheur occupation reverberates within the community 10 years later. Wilson joins us to share what he learned and the perspectives of former officials and community members he spoke with about the occupation and the challenges the county grapples with today.
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