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Posted: 5:41 PM- KANOSH - Newell Chlarson is one worried cowboy.

Most of the 3,000 "mother cows" from the White Sage Ranch he manages survived the weekend blowup of the Milford Flat fire that has charred a huge chunk of winter grazing land in Beaver and Millard counties.

The question now is: what are his cattle going to eat from October till next spring?

"I've got a lot of concern," he said Wednesday. "Where am I going to put them?"

Some 40 or more ranchers in this central Utah area, where agriculture is the backbone of the economy, face a tough decision: do they go broke buying hay or take the cattle to auction and go out of business?

"If you buy hay for $120 a ton, and I'm not sure you can, that's $60 a head for a month. And we're talking about eight months," Chlarson said. "And if you sell your cows, you lose your income."

Over 330,000 acres had burned by Wednesday, but officials hoped that if predicted dry thunderstorms in the area were not severe, firefighters could gain the upper hand by week's end.

Fire team Incident Commander Rowdy Muir said his crews are making direct attacks on the north and southeast ends of the blaze in an effort to save as much grazing land as possible. About 450 firefighters were tackling the wildfire's vast 250-mile perimeter.

Meanwhile, a small group of ranchers huddled in Kanosh with Leonard Blackham, the state agricultural commissioner, as well as representatives from Utah's congressional delegation, in an effort to secure emergency remedies in time to save ranching operations.

"We're at a loss of where to run them," said Beaver rancher Pete Yardley, who may have lost one-third of his 300-head herd in Saturday's conflagration. "We have to have a place to put these cattle. We just can't get rid of 'em"

Many ranchers use National Forest lands as summer range. But ultra-dry conditions may push the cattle out of the forest sooner than expected.

"We're getting letters to take them down because of drought," Yardley said. Federal officials "need to be more flexible."

Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will ask President Bush to designate the burned region a disaster area, making it eligible for federal assistance, Blackham said. That could help bridge the gap until federal monies arrive.

It's not just an immediate crisis ranchers face, Blackham noted. The range must be re-seeded for grazing next year.

"If we can get the governor and the [legislative] leadership and the majority caucus, we can get replanting done," he said. "But your immediate needs will be a little tougher."

One short-term option, Blackham noted, could be to allow ranchers onto federal Conservation Resource Program lands that are identified for such emergencies.

"We're concerned with the hit the ranchers are taking," said Millard County Commissioner John Cooper. "We're worried and we want help for them post haste."

But federal help may not soon arrive, said Kenneth Ure, the Beaver County representative of the U.S. Farm Service Agency.

"There's a lot of red tape. You're dealing with a huge bureaucracy," he said. "If you can't get the federal resources right now, it could be too late."

One possible solution would be to extend the federal Agriculture Assistance Act that recently was implemented as a livestock compensation program to fund purchasing hay, said Cornell Atkinson, Millard County's Farm Services agent. But it extended only from 2005 through Feb. 28, 2007, and there is no money in the program to be had.

"It would take an act of Congress," he said, noting that Congress is not known for its speediness. "You hate to say anything bad, but they'd really have to push this thing through."

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