ROGERSON - In black soot that was once grazing land, Rep. Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, stands over the charred body of a cow.

It's a gruesome scene: Scavengers have gotten to the animal, which lies just 100 yards from a cattle gate that would have meant safety.

"This didn't have to happen," Brackett says.

The cow, one of hundreds owned by Brackett that graze on Bureau of Land Management land near his Rogerson ranch, fell victim to the Murphy Complex Fire, a blaze officials are calling one of the largest in Idaho history.

Brackett says BLM grazing restrictions adopted in the past decade are partly responsible for the fire's size - about 600,000 acres as of late Tuesday. Cattle eat grasses that fuel fires, Brackett says. Fewer grasses mean less burnable material and a lower chance that fires as large as the Murphy Complex will strike.

Others aren't so sure.

"There is no scientific evidence that cattle or sheep grazing prevents fires at any time," said Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, a Hailey-based anti-grazing group. "If ranchers have evidence that grazing prevents fires, they should produce it."

About a mile from the dead cow, Brackett pulls his SUV off a dusty road near a barbed-wire fence line. On one side of the fence, more charred earth. On the other, grasses untouched by flames. Brackett said the side spared from fire was recently grazed.

"I think we need to take a hard look at basic (grazing) policy issues," Brackett said near the fence, "because what we're doing just isn't working."

In the past 10 years, he said, federal grazing guidelines have gotten tighter, and the number of acres of BLM land that burns each year has risen.

Between 2001 and 2006, the average number of acres burned each year was about 6.9 million. Between 1995 and 2000, that number was 4.3 million.

Grazing rules, largely formed by the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, were relatively unchanged from the mid-1970s until the mid-1990s.

During the Clinton administration, grazing rules tightened, mostly in the name of protecting wildlife and habitat. Idaho BLM's grazing regulations were revised significantly in 1995 in efforts to sustain and improve ecological health.

But if wildlife and habitat burn because of fires, do tighter grazing regulations do anything to protect the land?

That's the million-dollar question. It's a delicate balance between too much grazing and not enough, said Rick Vander Voet, Jarbidge field manager with the BLM. Environmental groups like WWP and ranchers like Brackett are both partly right he said, and it's up to the BLM to follow policy, which is usually somewhere in the middle.

Each Idaho BLM office is conducting assessments of every grazing allotment in Idaho to determine how grazing regulations affect the land. The assessments will likely be completed in the next two years.

Until then, there's not much ranchers like Brackett can do but hope for fewer fires.

Times-News staff writer Matt Christensen covers the environment. He welcomes comments at 735-3243 and at matt.christensen@lee.net.