You Don't Say!! Montana Officials Warn Of High-Risk Fire Season, Lack Of Resources & Agency Coordination

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The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation said it is fully staffed and ready for the fire season. However, officials stressed that wildfire response depends on coordination across state, local, federal and tribal agencies. And the initial attacks on small fires are usually done by local resources, many of them volunteer departments that have faced recruitment challenges, despite their critical role.

“Are our local fire services totally prepared? We’d like to say yes, but we are challenged,” said Rich Cowger, president emeritus of the Montana State Fire Chiefs, who noted that more than 300 local fire departments protect over 45 million acres across the state. “Our volunteer systems are stretched. Volunteerism today isn’t what it was in years past,” he said. That challenge comes as fire departments across Montana are facing growing demand for emergency response services. In 2000, when Karl Weeks, the fire chief of the Columbia Falls Fire Department, started volunteering, the department responded to about 170 calls each year. But over the last two decades, that’s increased, especially in the last two years. In 2020, the department responded to 305 calls; in 2022, it responded to 357— a 17 percent increase. (The fire department doesn’t do medical calls unless the local ambulance service, Three Rivers EMS, isn’t available.)

Federal firefighting operations within the U.S. Department of the Interior, where firefighters from several agencies were combined into the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, and in the U.S. Forest Service, which holds the largest number of federal wildland firefighters, are also undergoing restructuring this year, though officials said personnel with firefighting duties are expected to remain available when needed. In 2025, about 1400 of the 4200 people who took deferred resignations from the USFS as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to reduce the federal workforce were credentialled to fight wildfires but held other jobs and only responded to fires when needed. The Forest Service asked many of those employees to return to work during last summer’s fire season, but not all of them did.

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Of particular concern to fire managers is the threat of dry thunderstorms over Idaho and Montana that produce lightning strikes but no rain, which have historically been responsible for igniting some of the most damaging fires in the Pacific Northwest. Dry lightning from a single thunderstorm cell can ignite dozens of fires simultaneously, overwhelming initial attack resources. The long-term weather forecast from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise noted there is “higher potential for thunderstorms further north and east across the mountains of Idaho and most of Montana.”

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06062026/montana-drought-heat-elevated-wildfire-risk/