05/13/09

In 2005, the Clover Fire burned 193,000 acres west of Castleford. The next year, 62,000 acres were charred by the Sailor Cap Fire south of Hammett; and in 2007, the Murphy Complex fire consumed 650,000 acres in southern Idaho. Since then, the Bureau of Land Management has been hard at work at replanting those wild lands.

Scott Uhrig, Fire Rehabilitation Specialist says, “It's come back as expected. The weather, we've gotten real good spring rains, that really helps our efforts. We put a lot of seed in the ground, and if Mother Nature doesn't help us in a timely way, it's all for nothing.”

The B.L.M. has been overseeing the replanting of the burned wild lands. Each seeding mix has six or eight different kinds of seeds - including grasses - forbs, which are flowering, or leafy plants - and shrubs including sagebrush or bitterbrush.

Uhrig says, “Our drill seedings, we had approximately 99 drills that were going. And it was a big fire, a big effort, which was for the drill seeding. We aerial seeded sagebrush on a lot of acres, and our fence contractors, we still have fence contractors out here as we speak.”

Uhrig says the B.L.M. is doing its part to restore the native grasses and plants in order to combat cheat grass, which dries out quickly and provides ideal fuel for wildfires. He says B.L.M is also working with Twin Falls and Owyhee counties to combat the influx of noxious weeds.