Wildfires have been in the news recently with many West and Midwest states burning acres in 2025. Texas had the second largest fire in history a year ago, burning 1,058,482 acres. The West also had an extreme fire year in 2024 with four states burning at or close to a million acres in each, including California, Idaho and Wyoming. Oregon set a record of burning 1.9 million acres.
Kaitlynn Glover is the Executive Director of the Public Lands Council (PLC) and works on natural resources for the National Cattleman’s Beef Association (NCBA). She spoke about wildfires and the importance of common-sense grazing policy as a wildfire prevention tool with guest host Michelle Rook on AgriTalk.
“I feel like no matter any time in the year, no matter which year we’re talking about, there’s always going to be an anniversary of a big fire in the West,” Glover says. “The fire in Texas was absolutely devastating, and we’ve seen fires since then in California and Idaho and Washington and in these western states, and even in these Midwestern states, where you have a lot of grazing, you have a lot of forage build up, these grasses that dry out, especially if it’s dry later in the year. Grazing really is the best tool to be able to remove that risk from the landscape.”
Glover says it’s a huge asset to be able to raise cattle on grazed acres. But all that green grass in the spring turns into a liability if it’s not grazed off and dries out in the later months of the year.
“We have several 100 million acres that are public land, where you have a much wider space, and somewhere on the order of 145 million acres of those are grazed,” Glover says. “Each of those animals removes 1000s of pounds of fine fuels that that really can ignite on a dime. You just need a bad lightning storm to be able to have the next big fire conditions. So, grazing is really important.”
In his testimony on Feb. 11 in Washington, D.C., Tim Canterbury, Public Lands Council President and Colorado rancher, talked about the benefits of grazing, Glover shared.
“One thing that really stuck out to me was this number 45,” she says. “Grazing reduces the risk of fire ignition by 45% and that doesn’t matter whether you’re on public land or private land pasture. Whatever it is, reducing that risk is absolutely critical. Whether you’re in Washington or you’re in the Texas panhandle, you’re really looking at how you can apply grazing in a way that reduces that risk and allows you to protect those acres for the future.”
When it comes to policy, PLC looks for approaches that respect multiple use of public lands.
“It’s sort of like the Swiss Army knife of Land Management in the West,” Glover says. “Whether you’re hiking or biking or hunting or having energy development, the piece that makes public lands work is making sure that they’re healthy, they’re open and available.”
Glover points out that for western rangelands, grazing is what has kept them healthy over time.
“64% of Western cattle spend time on federal lands grazing,” she says. “It’s valuable forage, but it also is a huge protector of those landscapes in a very direct way.”
The question on everyone’s mind is what specific changes are needed from Congress or the Department of Interior to cover public lands and grazing of those lands to strike a balance. Glover has seen some traction in the targeted grazing space as private land operators, farmers and ranchers can look at their pastures and make quick decisions.
Creating fire break or using grass in a different way by moving animals around are examples she shares.
“That decision is very fast and you’re able to take action very quickly if it hasn’t been identified as a grazing allotment on federal land,” Glover adds. “In contrast, the agencies have been really reluctant for a long time to use grazing as a management tool.”
PLC continues to reiterate to lawmakers that grazing is not only a use, because it feeds into a commodity, but also a management tool that can be deployed in a lot of different places. Congress is working on bills that would direct targeted grazing in these other spaces.
“Typically, we think about reducing fire risk by cutting tall trees,” Glover explains. “We also are looking for some additional authorizations for getting some of the smaller fuels out through grazing, preventing that woody encroachment that we see so often in the Midwest.”
She says through those targeted grazing principles progress was made during the last Congress.
“We’ve seen the House pass targeted grazing legislation, especially related to fire,” she adds. “We’re looking forward to continuing that momentum in the Senate this year as well.”
