Catastrophic Wildfires Can Happen In CMR

Dear Editor,

California is not the only location being set up for catastrophic wildfire. We have the conditions present, at this very moment, for just such an event to occur. The location is right here in our own backyard, on the 1.1-million-acre CMR.

A common weather event, like a summer thunderstorm combined with a few windy days, is all it will take. Myopic Federal mismanagement and fiduciary neglect of that resource, in my opinion, has resulted in literally decades of dead, dry vegetation to build up on the ground out there. The native beneficial grass is being replaced by annual weedy species, most notably Japanese Brome and Cheatgrass Brome. Beneficial forbs are in rapid decline, as are elk and deer populations. The bureau and technocrats in charge of the CMR have reduced the grazing for cows by 93 percent. According to the CMR manager, there were 90,000 AUMs in 1973. Only 6,000 remain today. Since the change in name from the CMR Game Range to the CMR Wildlife Refuge, the equivalent of 14,000 cows, grazing for the six-month summer season, have been removed and excluded. The allotted rights to graze those cattle have been extinguished by Federal Government agency dictate as well.

The result of this ideologically driven mismanagement is the creation of a landscape that is vulnerable and prone to severe fire. AKA, Chapparal. The CMR has reacted with a new controlled burn strategy. In the fall of 2023, the agency conducted a burn targeting 14,000 acres west of Highway 191. 10,000 acres were "treated." They had 80 personnel, 15 fire engines, a Type 3 fire team and several helicopters to implement the burn. The cost, which the CMR manager stated they could not (or would not) report and verify because the exact total was unknown to him, was in the millions. That much he admitted. I have participated in fire cost settlement meetings. The cost is known and documented. The pre-burn archeological study alone was over 130,000 dollars. It will cost taxpayers millions upon millions more for the practice of this malignant pseudo religion.

Using cows to remove the grass would be infinitely more fiscally responsible, logical, and beneficial, for both the resource and wildlife, not to mention the economy and tax base. The science is in favor of the cows. It is within the agency's purview to utilize cattle as a management tool on the CMR; they just refuse to do it. That is the policy. Policy has consequences. And mark my words; catastrophic fire is coming to the CMR. It is only a matter of time.

Sincerely,

Scott E. Cassel

Glasgow, Mont.