Fires can easily ignite and spread quickly in cured (dying and drying) grasses, which respond quickly to changes in air moisture. Once ignited, grass fires respond rapidly to changes in wind direction and speed making them unpredictable and dangerous. The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute shows that Alberta has 1.4 million kilometres of linear rights-of-way (pipelines, powerlines, seismic lines, railways, and access roads) most of which have been colonized by a variety of grass species. Over the past several years, Alberta has experienced several large and challenging wildfires where cured grasses within rights-of-way (ROWs) were a contributing factor (e.g., Chisholm Fire in 2001, House Creek Fire in 2002). In 2005, FPInnovations launched a multi-year study to determine whether a less-flammable, herbaceous species could replace the flammable grasses that typically colonize linear ROWs.