Fire Season is Coming and Montana is Unprepared.

— April 11, 2025 —

Last week, I sat down with Skip, a retired U.S. Forest Service worker in the Bitterroot. He’s been through decades of fire seasons—some hard, some hopeful—but this year, he didn’t mince words:

“We’re going in blind. And we’re going in short-handed.”

He’s right.

Over 300 federal jobs have been cut in Montana under Trump’s “Waste, Fraud and Abuse” task force—many of them in the U.S. Forest Service. These weren’t redundant paper-pushers. These were experienced staff—trail crews, fuels specialists, and trained firefighter reserves—already on the payroll, already trained. Gone. Just like that.

In the Flathead, fuels reduction projects that were supposed to break ground this spring have been put on indefinite hold. In Ravalli County, forest thinning around key access roads was delayed due to staffing shortages. Trail maintenance crews in Lolo have been slashed, and that means harder access for emergency responders when wildfire hits. In some rural counties, confusion over who has burn ban authority is growing because federal-state coordination has been hollowed out.

This isn’t just about boots on the ground. It’s also about the minds behind the maps.

Fire science exists for a reason. We have it because of hard-earned lessons—none more powerful than the Great Fire of 1910, which swept through northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. It burned more than 3 million acres in just two days, destroyed entire towns, and took 86 lives.

The Great Fire of 1910 affected forest fire fighting policy across the nation. It was a turning point that led to the professionalization of wildfire response and the birth of modern fire science. It taught us that ignoring risk, underfunding readiness, and failing to plan have deadly consequences.

That’s why we've invested in research institutions like the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory—to understand drought conditions, model fire behavior, and guide proactive action through science to protect lives, property, and forests for generations. Much of that work has been slashed or frozen. Scientists are being sidelined. Fuel reduction projects are stalled.

The Missoula Fire Sciences Lab—one of the best wildfire research facilities in the world—is also being gutted. Long-term projects are frozen. Staff are leaving. The fire modeling and data Montana has relied on for generations is being sidelined at the very moment we need it most.

In a recent KPAX article, representatives from Montana’s own congressional offices—Senators Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy, and Congressman Troy Downing—attended a meeting with forest industry leaders and had no answers. No updates on when funding might be restored. No solutions. No plan.

One of Downing’s staffers emphasized the Congressman’s commitment to “rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse”—while standing in front of the very industry and workforce now suffering from those cuts. That wasn’t just tone-deaf. It was dangerous.

We’re not talking about ideology. We’re talking about jobs, emergency response, mill contracts, and wildfire resilience in real communities across Montana. The people sent to speak for us in D.C. didn’t show up with answers. They showed up with talking points—and walked away with nothing resolved.

If we’ve learned anything from the Great Fire of 1910, it’s that ignoring risk leads to tragedy. That fire killed 86 people and burned 3 million acres. It forced the creation of modern federal fire policy. Now, we're watching that progress unravel.

This isn’t just a policy failure—it’s a betrayal of the lessons of our past.

So, what do we do?

First, we restore federal support. We fully reinstate funding and positions within the U.S. Forest Service. These are essential roles that protect lives, manage forests, and form the backbone of our seasonal firefighting reserve. They should never have been cut.

Second, we enhance state-level initiatives. Montana must do everything it can to bridge the gaps left by federal rollbacks—through local partnerships, emergency funding, and interagency collaboration that centers rural and tribal communities.

Third, and just as vital, we must invest in fire science. The Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory is one of the best tools we have to predict, plan, and respond to fire in a hotter, drier West. Cutting that research is like throwing away the map and marching straight into the smoke.

If I were in the U.S. Senate right now, I’d be pushing for all of this. I’d be calling for a full accounting of Montana’s wildfire readiness—and for a federal-state strategy to fix what’s broken before the flames arrive.

I’m running for U.S. Senate to hold Steve Daines accountable and to make sure Montana is never left out of the conversation—or sacrificed to politics.

Fire season doesn’t wait. Neither should we.