[SOS-PCA] NEWS: Invasive weed a fuel for West's wildfires

[Olivia Kwong]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2007-08-29-cheatgrass_N.htm

Invasive weed a fuel for West's wildfires
By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY

DENVER -- Cheatgrass, a wispy Eurasian weed accidentally brought to the 
USA in the late 19th century, has become a 21st century headache across 
the West, fueling some of this summer's most destructive wildfires.

The largest blaze in Utah history, the 567-square-mile Milford Flat fire 
last month, raced across rangeland infested with the highly combustible, 
straw-colored plant. Bone-dry expanses of cheatgrass in Idaho and Nevada 
also stoked the 1,020-square-mile Murphy Complex fires, the largest to 
burn in Idaho in 97 years.

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