Stretching nearly 60 miles north-south along the western flank of the Salt River Range south of Jackson, Wyo., the Star Valley Front provides tens of thousands of acres of public land for hunters and big game to roam. Yet wildlife habitat here has become less than optimal due to decades of fire suppression, which has allowed shrublands and aspen stands vital to elk, mule deer and moose to become old, decayed and invaded by conifers.
In 2021, the Bridger-Teton National Forest Greys River Ranger District embarked on a massive, multi-year effort to prescribe burn more than 31,000 acres across a nearly 65,000-acre project area along the front. RMEF is helping fund the ongoing effort, granting $10,000 in 2026 to purchase “dragon eggs”—spheres about the size of ping-pong balls filled with high-grade potassium permanganate powder—that are dispersed by drone onto the landscape.
Just before the drone drops an egg, it injects the sphere with ethylene glycol, triggering a chemical reaction that causes the ball to ignite on the ground. This method allows managers to place precision ignition points over a large area, including places that would be hard to reach on foot.
The Greys River Ranger District used the dragon eggs to ignite a 1,200-acre burn near Smoot in March 2026, which will help restore a balance of age classes to sagebrush and aspen in an area vital to wintering elk and mule deer.
