A year ago, however, 3,000 square miles of Idaho — an area three times the size of Rhode Island — were torched by blazes. The biggest was the Murphy complex of fires, a lightning-caused inferno that burned for three weeks and became the largest single fire ever fought by the Idaho BLM at nearly 1,000 square miles. It left behind dead wildlife and livestock, scorched grazing ground and charred habitat for seasons to come for sensitive species such as sage grouse.

As the embers were barely cool, BLM managers and ranchers last fall began discussions about improving communication before the next conflagration.

For an initial agency investment of $10,000, the seven Iridium satellite phones seemed a reasonable bargain, said Janet Peterson, the BLM's safety manager in Boise — especially considering the Murphy complex alone cost more than $13 million to fight and will likely set taxpayers back another $34 million to restore the blackened landscape.

"The ranchers are a pretty key partner," she said. "They know the country."

Iridium has nearly 230,000 commercial and government voice subscribers, along with a unit that supplies equipment for companies and the U.S. Department of Defense to track assets in remote areas where there's no conventional cellular communication. Voice users include soldiers, the maritime industry, oil and gas companies, utilities, construction and mining — "Basically any industry where you've got workers out in the middle of nowhere," Iridium spokeswoman Liz DeCastro said.

Should one of Idaho's cowboys spot a fire and place a call, firefighting planes stationed at the Boise Airport across the Snake River could be scrambled quickly. The ranchers have been told to use the phones in medical emergencies, too. The state's disaster agency, the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security, is chipping in for the service costs.

"If you see a fire and have no connectivity, you can't tell anybody," said Col. Bill Shawver, the agency's director. "To have a satellite phone with you, you can make that immediate call and get firefighters mobilized."

The phones were distributed to ranchers based on where they run their cattle and the existing grid of cell phone service. Cowboys call in once a month, to make sure the phones are working.

Ken Tindall, whose family has ranched Owyhee County since 1885, has 1,000 head of cattle on 100,000 acres of private and public land on both sides of the Idaho and Nevada border. In Nevada, he has no cell phone reception at all; his BLM sat phone could come in handy, he said.

"From some of the ridge tops, I can see 80, 90 or 100 miles in any direction," Tindall said. "If I see smoke, I can get it reported very quickly. I could have used it last year a lot, that's for sure."