Cheatgrass, a wispy Eurasian weed accidentally brought to the USA in the late 19th century, has become a 21st century headache across the West, fueling some of this summer's most destructive wildfires.The largest blaze in Utah history, the 567-square-mile Milford Flat fire last month, raced across rangeland infested with the highly combustible, straw-colored plant. Bone-dry expanses of cheatgrass in Idaho and Nevada also stoked the 1,020-square-mile Murphy Complex fires, the largest to burn in Idaho in 97 years.
The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) estimates 2 million acres have burned in the Great Basin, the West's expanse of sagebrush steppes vulnerable to cheatgrass fires.
The governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming formally declared war this month on the invader, which now dominates between 25 million and 100 million acres of sagebrush in the Great Basin. They pledged cooperation in replanting charred areas before the weed can take root again. The BLM estimates cheatgrass invades 4,000 acres of new terrain a day.
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