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Northern Great Plains (NGP) grasslands evolved under the influence of grazing and fire, resulting in mosaics of habitats of low to high seral plant communities. Much of that heterogeneity has been lost due to fire suppression and contemporary grazing management for uniform use. Research demonstrates that patch-burn grazing (PBG) effectively increases heterogeneity on the landscape by creating a shifting mosaic of vegetation structure and plant communities.� Many NGP landowners are averse to fire due to concerns of property and forage loss.� Thus, winter patch grazing (WPG) is being studied as an alternative, non-pyric management strategy for creating heterogeneity. In WPG, intensive winter grazing by cows in patches reduces standing dead forage and vegetation structure, to mimicking the effects of fire.� �In October 2016, wildfire burned parts of 3 pastures in the WPG study at the Cottonwood Research Station. Thus, a study was conducted to compare effects of a wildfire burned patch (PBG), a WPG patch, and an untreated patch (Control) in each of the 3 pastures on livestock use patterns.� Height of standing live and dead vegetation in spring 2017 was measured to assess the impact of each treatment on vegetation structure.� NDVI values from satellite imagery were used to compare greenness of vegetation for each treatment. To assess livestock use patterns, a subset of steers within each pasture were outfitted with GPS collars that recorded a fix at one minute intervals during the summer 2017 grazing season.� GPS data were used to calculate cattle preferences for each plant community in each pasture.� Results show livestock have higher preference for PBG areas of each pasture followed by WPG, and then Control.� Results from this study can help provide a framework for fire adverse land managers to use WPG as a surrogate for fire to create heterogeneity on the landscape.