Mountain West (CO ID MT NV UT WY)

"The death threat itself didn’t bother Mike Ehlebracht. He’d been threatened plenty of times before."

"In the reality TV series 'Prospectors,' gem hunters on a peak in central Colorado face the dangers of high-altitude lightning, rock falls, cave-ins and whiteouts while digging for valuable rocks 'just like their predecessors 150 years ago.'"

"SALMON, Idaho -- Firefighters mounted on Sunday an all-out ground and air attack on an Idaho wildfire that has forced the evacuation of some 2,250 homes and threatened the world-class ski resort of Sun Valley, where snow-making water cannons were used to keep the flames at bay."

"DENVER -- Colorado regulators looking at new air quality rules for oil and gas drillers are getting more time to set the rules."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to let oil companies continue to dump polluted wastewater on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. This includes chemicals that companies add to the wells during hydraulic fracturing, an engineering practice that makes wells produce more oil."

"As its name implies, the sage grouse lives in sagebrush country, the rolling hills of knee-high scrub that's the common backdrop in movie Westerns. Pristine sagebrush is disappearing, however, and so are the birds. Biologists want to protect the sage grouse, but without starting a 21st century range war over it. So they've undertaken a grand experiment in the American West, to keep the grouse happy, as well as cattle ranchers and the energy industry."

"If you doubt that climate change is transforming the American landscape, go to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sweltering temperatures there have broken records this summer, and a seemingly permanent orange haze of smoke hangs in the air from multiple wildfires."

"Colorado oil and gas industry regulators have given medical community leaders a written assurance that doctors can obtain and share trade-secret information about fracking chemicals for the purpose of treating patients and protecting public health."

"A trio of wind-driven wildfires roared unchecked across 76,000 acres of national forest in southwest Colorado on Monday and firefighters held the line against flames threatening the mountain town of South Fork."

"Two people have been killed by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history, law enforcement officials said on Thursday, as crews fought to keep the fierce, wind-whipped blaze from roaring into the outskirts of Colorado Springs."