Mending Milford: Ravaged by wildfire 1 year ago, area begins to recover

The hope is that wildlife won't over-forage the area and that the rains and winter will be kind to the areas of young growth. By late 2010, Gates thinks the reseeded tracts burned by Milford Flat will be ready for ranchers who have grazing allotments in those areas. Until then, the BLM is considering putting up miles and miles of electric fences to keep livestock out of those areas but still offer access to adjacent, more abundant fields of older growth.

In the meantime the BLM, with a more "limited" budget these days, will continue annual monitoring of the Milford Flat aftermath.

Gates said if another huge wildfire were to occur with similar impacts, the federal funds won't be there to rehabilitate areas on the same level as Milford Flat. "They're going to gut the program," Gates said, referencing Congress' reducing the BLM's budget for rehabilitating burned areas.

There will be more fires, some big ones, Gates predicted, but the number of large wildfires in Utah should diminish once the fuel that has built up over the past 150 years has been burned away.

In the meantime, for the few years he has left with the BLM as a range manager before retiring, Gates will continue trying to balance "value" systems that differ from one person or group to the next, some of whom don't want the BLM to do anything and let nature take its course after wildfires.

When he's no longer juggling value systems for a living, in a very visible way Gates will have left his lasting stamp on reborn portions of Utah where fires once left their mark.

"I'll miss it when I retire," said Gates, looking out over the grasses planted after the 1997 and 2007 fires. "I'll miss doing this."

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com