Graze It, Don't Blaze It

With the recent catastrophic wildfires burning across the Northwest — Idaho Cattle Association’s Executive Vice President Wyatt Prescott shares why grazing can be a critical tool in fighting fires before they begin by reducing the potential fuel.
Prescott: “ICA contends that very simply we believe you can graze it — we have a slogan ‘Graze it not Blaze it.’ Beef livestock can be a tool in managing the rangeland across the Northwest. A tool that we are not managing wildlife habitat, sagebrush sea, and rangeland ecology but at the same time we’re producing a very sustainable beef product by doing this. The context of it is very simple — we can slow down the spread of these catastrophic wildfires by utilizing more feed which after it dries out it becomes fuel. The fire triangle has three legs to it — it takes oxygen, an ignition and fuel. If we reduce some of those fuel loads — that slows that fire down.”
Prescott continues by sharing the ranchers frustration that these lands need to be managed on the ground by considering the conditions of the range and its grasses — like was the case in the Southwest Idaho Soda Fire — that had plenty of grass this spring.
Prescott: “The tragedy is that the reason that management and flexibility is not there is because there is a conversation about turning more cows out the agencies get sued by those radical environmental groups and that is really why the flexibility is not there.”