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Alex Cabrero Reporting Firefighters have launched an offensive against cheat grass.
It's a tough, yellow grass that's taking over some areas of the state. This grass has firefighters very concerned.
For the past few years, it seems like this cheat grass is everywhere.
When fire gets to it, such as from a lightning strike or something, it burns, and burns fast. That's a problem with wildfires. And really the only way to keep it from burning is to burn it.
Anywhere else, and Jeff Parrish would be in trouble for arson. But here, he's doing a good thing.
Jeff Parrish/ BLM Firefighter: "Oh, I like it. It's a good time. Beats being behind a desk, that's for sure."
Some 50 BLM firefighters spent the afternoon torching parts of Skull Valley. The thinking goes, if you create a wildfire you can control, when an uncontrollable one starts, there won't be much for it to burn.
Brook Chadwick/ BLM: "Maybe not stop, but slow down enough so our fire suppression resources can catch that fire before it gets too big."
But the biggest problem for firefighters isn't really Mother Nature. It's the cheat grass. It's a really dry plant. Fire just spreads on it, and it's pretty much all over the state.
Brook Chadwick: "It's like a gasoline carpet."
In about a minute, the seemingly safe spot where we were standing from the fire line burned up to us. On a windy day it can turn into an inferno, and that's a problem, even in rural Tooele County.
Erin Darboven/ BLM: "It does seem like the middle of nowhere, but we're merely 20 miles from a major corridor, I-80 West. But we had a fire here a few years ago, and it only took a few moments for it to rip through this cheat grass and hit I-80."
It does burn fast, but after it's burned through, there are some plants left. The BLM will plant more of the crested wheat grass because it's more fire resistant, which means it'll help slow down wildfires.
But you have to get rid of the cheat grass first.
Brook Chadwick: "Cheat grass is a very big problem for us, to say the least."
Erin Darboven: "This is our enemy number one right now."
Cheat grass isn't native to Utah or to the West. It was brought here from overseas.
Fighting it is tough because it's such a resilient plant. But the BLM says you have to try, otherwise everywhere would be one big fire hazard.
