Wildfire rehab in Idaho, Oregon includes fall herbicide

The federal government’s 5-year, $67 million rehabilitation effort following a rangeland wildfire in southwest Idaho and southeast Oregon is entering its second year with another round of herbicide applications combined with plantings of native species.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has started applying Imazapic on federal lands to knock out invasive weeds in Oregon and will begin in Idaho in October.

About 100 square miles, roughly half in each state, of aerial spraying is taking place and visitors are asked to stay away from posted areas.

The 2015 wildfire scorched about 436 square miles of sagebrush steppe that supports cattle grazing and some 350 species of wildlife, including sage grouse.

The rehabilitation is part of a plan to develop new strategies to combat increasingly destructive rangeland wildfires, mainly in Great Basin states.