That suggests that as emissions pour more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in coming decades, red brome will spread readily across southern Nevada s Mojave Desert while cheatgrass does the same thing in northern Nevada. Impacts would range from the loss of native plants and the animals that need them to increasing wildfire danger. Cheatgrass burns readily and was largely responsible for the record 1999 fire season, when some 1.6 million acres burned across Nevada, and another busy fire season last summer. That doesn t bode well for the future, Nowak said. If you think things are bad now, they re only going to get worse.
Land managers are already worried over the situation.
After Nevada s devastating 1999 fire season, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a long-term strategy to do battle against the invasion of cheatgrass, which has already spread across some 25 million acres of the Great Basin. Rather than suggest the effort might be pointless, the carbon dioxide study makes the importance of the BLM s restoration effort all the more clear, Nowak said. We really better get after this and really get it done, Nowak said. Then we ll at least have a chance to at least keep a lid on it. Use of this site signifies agreement to our terms of service .