The BLM recently hosted a tour in Owyhee County to look at rehabilitation efforts after the Soda Fire. Photo by Steve Ritter
Secretary of the Interior Tours Soda Fire Scene By Jake Putnam Grandview—Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell saw the transformation for herself, a quarter of a million acres of range reduced to ash last summer now lush and green. Last August great waves of fire swallowed up the Owyhee range destroying sage, rangeland and cattle operations. When the smoke cleared great walls of dust and blowing ash swept the plain and the next environmental disaster was just a flash flood away. The BLM sent teams of scientists to work out a plan. The massive fire started last August 10 and scorched more than 280,000 acres of rangeland stretching from Grandview to eastern Oregon. “The amount of science that’s being learned 12
here is nothing short of incredible,” Jewell said at a news conference at the Interagency Fire Center, “and I think all that knowledge will advise us for many years to come.” BLM Natural Resource Specialist Cindy Fritz was one of hundreds of experts that hit the ground running last summer to aid the parched land. She says the BLM was committed to the rehab effort from the start spending some $14 million dollars to date and says things are off to a good start. “We’ve been doing the reseeding efforts since last fall. This was the first step to restore the range and have sage grouse habitat out here again,” said Fritz. “First and foremost is soil stabilization and includes attacking the spread of invasive species. After a fire it’s an open palette out here because
Idaho Farm Bureau Quarterly / SUMMER 2016
after a fire we have the power to put in perennial grass and not only stabilize the soil but be competitive against invasive species in the long run.” According to Fritz, the BLM used 14 different seed mixes during the emergency recovery. Ranchers on the tour were free to speak and many blamed decades of government mismanagement. “The reason this country burned so hot is because the last 40 years, they took more and more cattle off the range,” said Owyhee County rancher Ed Wilsey. “They took the sheep off the range and all this organic overburden built up, that duff was a foot deep under the sagebrush and that’s nothing but See SODA REHAB page 26