Aiding recovery — Johnson County awarded $12.3 million for restoration from House Draw Fire

BUFFALO — The Clear Creek Conservation District was awarded more than $12.3 million for restoration projects in and around the burn scar of last year’s House Draw fire.

The Wyoming Legislature allocated nearly $50 million to the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust account for wildfire restoration grants after a historic wildfire season around the state.

The House Draw fire in Johnson County was the largest at nearly 175,000 acres.

Zach Byram, Clear Creek Conservation District manager, said that the district will manage the

projects and the funding while working with other agencies and organizations through the Johnson County Natural Habitat Restoration Team.

It’s the largest amount of grant funding that the district has seen since Byram has been at the helm, he said.

“Obviously, the wind that occurred during the fire pushed it, but there were also a lot of invasive annual grasses out there,” Byram said. “There were also huge implications for sage-grouse. For those reasons, I was fairly confident we’d get the money. I didn’t think we’d get the whole ask, but we did.”

The conservation district will work with the Johnson County Weed and Pest District to complete $9.3 million in invasive annual grass treatments – $6 million will be used within the burn scar, and $3.3 million will be used on land outside of the fire.

Another $2.5 million will be used to plant sagebrush for Greater Sage-Grouse nesting habitat within the burn scar, and $400,000 will be used to build up to 400 Zeedyk structures, which are constructed in ephemeral streams to help slow water so soil can absorb it to grow grass and forbs and reduce water and wind-driven erosion.

The conservation district is also planting native grass seed within the dugout firelines, which will be reimbursed with $120,000 of the state restoration funding.

Byram said that he expects to start invasive vegetation treatments and planting for sage-grouse nesting habitat this fall.

Construction of Zeedyk structures will begin late spring through summer. Locations will be contingent on where mapping data shows these treatments should be prioritized, as well as landowner participation.

Both the grant amount and the turnaround time between application and award was novel for the district, Byram said. WWNRT solicited grant applications beginning in mid-March, and applicants presented project proposals at meetings held in Buffalo, Wheatland and Gillette, according to the governor’s office.

The district and other agencies and organizations that are part of the restoration team also recently wrapped up an aerial sagebrush seeding effort on sage-grouse core habitat that was burned in the fire.

“I felt fairly confident, because the House Draw has been a poster child for all things landscape restoration that Wyoming is looking at,” Byram said. “They also had seen and heard about the work that we’ve done. They’re aware we have a group up here capable of handling that amount of funding, and now projects will be planned out accordingly.”

Whether grant funding for landscape-scale restoration work would be available to conservation districts, weed and pest districts and the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission was uncertain until the end of this year’s legislative session. Lawmakers debated the amount of grant funding that should be available and if it should instead be a loan program.

Ultimately, the grant funding and an additional $100 million in loans for habitat restoration, fences, irrigation and other infrastructure on state and private lands were codified in Senate Enrolled Act 62.

Gov. Mark Gordon has been vocal in his support of grant funding for fire recovery. He originally requested that $130 million be allocated to the program in his supplemental budget request.

“Wyoming’s landscapes are our livelihood. Wildfires present a tremendous threat, and recovery must be approached thoughtfully and in concert with private landowners,” Gordon said in a statement. “I thank the Legislature for recognizing this need and for putting resources behind a grant program that can enable land managers to get to work on rehabilitation efforts quickly.”

This story was published on May 8, 2025.