In early July, a bolt of lightning struck the high desert
outside of Milford, Utah, lighting a fire that torched more than
300,000 acres of sagebrush and juniper. As residents fled the
nearby town of Cove Fort, smoke blanketed Interstate 15, causing
a pileup and one fatal crash. It took more than 300
firefighters, two air tankers, two helicopters, 30 fire engines,
and nine bulldozers to control the flames of the Milford Flat
blaze. A thick blanket of invasive cheatgrass burned like
gasoline because, unlike native grasses, it had completely dried
out weeks before, dropping its seeds to the soil below.
Wildfires burned nearly 5 million acres in the West this year,
much of that in the sagebrush ecosystem where cheatgrass
thrives. Though the fight to subdue those fires is winding down,
a new, high-stakes drama is just beginning. Government
scientists are already in the field, writing restoration plans
for the burned areas and taking advantage of a slim window of
opportunity to tackle what is generally accepted as