The soft patterns of the grasses belie the firestorm rising on the horizon. In 1985, the federal government started a program known as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The idea was to encourage farmers to set some of their land aside for the benefit of wildlife. Hundreds of thousands of acres were placed off limits for farming and in turn, the farmer was paid a reasonable sum of money not to farm it. It was a win-win for wildlife.
Unfortunately, the CRP isn’t an infinite program and much of the land set aside is now being returned to agricultural production. This parcel of several hundred acres in northern Montana is in the throws of its final hours as it gets burned and eventually tilled.