The disaster facing the state's No. 1 agriculture industry is told in the numbers of a Utah Department of Agriculture and Food survey of ranchers released Friday: Nearly 300 cattle and calves were killed by fire, 90 were injured and 1,285 are unaccounted for. Initial reports had placed the number of cattle killed at 200.

Fires and drought have pushed nearly half of all cattle in the state off summer ranges - forcing ranchers to sell off herds or find the money to buy hay, says a U.S. Statistical Service report. Some 78 ranchers affected by wildfires say they need at least 38,500 tons of hay to feed nearly 9,700 displaced animals, according to the Agriculture Department survey.

Those numbers don't include other producers in 25 of the state's 29 counties coping with severe drought, Utah agriculture officials say.

Rancher Clark Bradshaw of Beaver lost 38 head in the Milford Flat fire, which charred more than 363,052 acres. He hopes that recent rain will give him a few more weeks to graze his cattle on public lands. Bradshaw knows, however, that he'll have to bring home his herd long before the traditional October deadline, and then, "I'll have to get a loan and start buying hay."

Yet so far, government relief to ranchers and farmers has been as sparse as precipitation in this drought-stricken state.

The U.S. Agriculture secretary is still deciding whether to declare a disaster for Utah, which would qualify ranchers and farmers for low-interest loans. Federal officials say Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s July 27 letter seeking relief took nine days to make its way to Washington, D.C. It takes at least three weeks for some kind of a determination, once the request is processed.

"Typically, government response to agriculture doesn't have the same immediacy of say, when people have lost their homes in a natural disaster," said Ag Department spokesman Larry Lewis.

Although the federal government has paid landowners tens of millions of dollars to idle their rangelands, releasing the acreage for emergency grazing may be problematic.

One requirement is that Utah's drought must be classified by the federal government in the "extreme" D-4 category, but conditions currently are listed only in the "severe" D-3 designation.

Drought categories tend to lag behind actual conditions, said Bruce Richeson, the executive director of the U.S. Farm Service Agency. And, monsoon rains in various parts of the state may skew the numbers even more.

Nevertheless - the drought is severe enough that lands held in the Conservation Reserve Program may be in such poor condition that the acreage may not be suitable for emergency grazing anyway, officials said.

Utah State University has set up a Web site, Utahexchange.org, so that producers wanting to sell or buy hay may obtain contact information. There's also a link for anyone wishing to donate feed but "it's not that people aren't willing," said Utah Farm Bureau spokesman Matt Hargreaves, "it's that they're not able."

Salt Lake mortgage broker Lawrence Whetman is the first to offer free assistance. Whetman, who owns 640 acres near Monticello in southeastern Utah, is offering ranchers a place to graze and water their cattle. Whetman is working with the Utah Farm Bureau to determine just how many cattle his property can support, "but the land is available right now," he said, "and ready to go."

Even so, producers suffering losses from wildfires apparently aren't expecting much help. Nearly half of the producers surveyed by Ag Department said they expect to "cowboy up," meaning they'll ride out the disaster on their own.