State on hook for up to $70 million in fire suppression costs this season

Montana’s 2025 fire season is expected to be pricey — between $50 and $70 million — driven largely by a complicated wildfire near Drummond earlier this year that’ll likely come out to be the most expensive suppression effort in state history.

A state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation official said during the Oct. 23 Environmental Quality Council meeting that 2,303 fires burned 75,000 acres in Montana this year. 

This was one of the lowest acreages burned in state history, which Gov. Greg Gianforte has repeatedly pointed to and praised DNRC for its work.

DNRC’s fire management manual says that under state law, the department is required to perform aggressive initial attack on all fires and keep them “as small as possible.”

“Under Montana Code Annotated 76-13-104, the DNRC has the responsibility to protect land, property and natural resources within the state,” the agency said to the Daily Montanan. “The department places the utmost importance on the lives of firefighters and the public and will not intentionally jeopardize safety in pursuit of fire suppression responsibilities.”

The steep costs of the fire season coupled with the sparse acres that burned have raised questions about the state’s approach to wildfires. The Gianforte Administration has focused on suppression, calling their methods, “a model of proactive planning and decisive action.” 

Legislators are drilling down on wildfire as part of a state study on suppression, as new research shows forests might not actually be as dense as once thought, directly contradicting a large swath of American fire policy.

Fire mitigation, the practice of reducing risk of catastrophic wildfires, is one way state and federal legislators are looking at trying to solve the problem.

But some mitigation practices — including logging, thinning and prescribed fires — are controversial to some environmentalists and there is vast disagreement within those circles about what, if anything, should be done to the nation’s forests.

Legislators heard testimony on suppression efforts and smoke impacts of prescribed burns during the meeting, which comes under the backdrop of massive federal changes surrounding wildfires.

The Fix Our Forest Act, recently proposed federal legislation from Montana U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy, has been a touchpoint for some environmental groups, saying that so-called thinning operations, a tool fire managers use to reduce fuel loads in forests, is opening the door to major logging projects in national forests. Sheehy himself is connected to the wildfire fighting industry, having founded Bridger Aerospace, an aerial firefighting company.

Those same environmental groups, as well as a California author and research ecologist studying the issue, also say the way prescribed burns and thinning operations are being conducted does not follow historical wildfire patterns, saying specifically that the idea that huge swathes of the country’s forests are too dense is fundamentally incorrect.

The state and federal government work closely together on wildfires, as about 30% of Montana’s land is federally owned. This also complicates who pays for what, as Montana receives reimbursements for wildfire expenditures, but it does not cover the whole bill.

Legislators passed a slew of wildfire-related bills during the last session, including House Bill 70, a study into state fire suppression, which is driving conversations on the topic and is expected to be picked back up again in January.

“It’s really difficult to totally criticize,” Sen. Willis Curdy, D-Missoula, vice-chair of EQC told the Daily Montanan of the effort on Windy Rock. “But on the other hand I think some serious questions need to be asked.” 

‘A policy of aggressive attack’

The most expensive wildfire this season, the Windy Rock Fire, located about 17 miles from Drummond, still had people assigned to it in October, after being initially reported in late August.

The total cost to suppress the fire was about $56 million, though a DNRC spokesperson told the Daily Montanan that number is subject to change. The fire started on August 14 and burned 6,175 acres.

“It’s really important to note that the figure we provide may change and does not include the (Fire Management Assistance Grants). Finalized numbers for fire costs and FMAGs can take months and sometimes even years,” DNRC spokesperson Moria Davin wrote in an email.

The grants come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has been in chaos since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. 

Likely, though, it’ll be among the most expensive suppression efforts in state history. Montana’s 10-year annual average for firefighting costs is about $30 million, said Wyatt Frampton, a DNRC official addressing the committee. There are no solid numbers yet on actual expenses, which also makes this year an outlier, Frampton said.

“Given prolonged staffing that we had into October and some ongoing significant expenses associated with special activities, we don’t have a firm resolution for you yet on those final estimates for fire season cost,” Frampton told the committee.

The Windy Rock Fire originated on Bureau of Land Management land and the state responded with its county assist team. Montana and the BLM have an agreement over fire “offset” protection in that area, Frampton explained.

“There are exchanges of protection,” Frampton told the committee. “There’s areas where the Forest Service protects Forest Service or BLM protects private property, and likewise, the state will protect federal lands to try to have a net balance between the agencies.”

The fire also became complicated almost immediately and it burned in rocky and steep terrain, which complicated efforts. It threatened about 175 residences as well, Frampton said. Beyond that, there were other problems, too.

“Dead and down fuels from a past Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak pose additional challenges,” an Aug. 16 press release from the fire states. “The Windy Rock Fire is located near a Wilderness Study Area and a Backcountry Conservation Area, requiring fire operations to take special considerations for these landscapes.”

The fire became something of a spectacle, in part drawing massive air tankers to Helena Regional Airport that performed sorties on the fire for a week in late August. Firefighters on a Sanders County fire noted getting air resources as “challenging” due to “escalating demands” in the region on Aug. 22.

When incidents get larger or more complicated than local or state resources can handle, special teams are called — in this case, Northwest Team 2.

The day they took command from the state, Aug. 25, Gov. Greg Gianforte visited and toured the fire’s command post saying that day, “we’ve pursued a policy of aggressive attack on all fires.”

And the state did — per reporting by Substack and podcast, The Hotshot Wakeup on Aug. 25, the amount of fire retardant Montana used increased from 400,000 gallons to more than 1 million gallons in a week around the time those tankers were operating out of Helena.

Beyond the cost, many environmental groups have serious concerns with fire retardant, which contains high levels of toxic metals. The effectiveness of aerial attack on a fire is greatly debated and aircraft are not effective and often grounded in windy conditions.

Former legislator Jim Keane, a member of the Environmental Quality Council, asked questions to state staff regarding the cost of aerial attack versus ground efforts. 

“There has to be an astronomical amount of aviation assets that went into this fire year on a minimum amount of acres,” Keane said during the meeting.

The Trump Administration has pushed for more money and equipment for firefighters, with some focus on aerial firefighting. In fact, Sen. Sheehy was a cosponsor on bipartisan legislation earlier this year that made it easier for private contractors to acquire airplane parts for the nation’s firefighting fleet.

This fire season is expected to be the most expensive in U.S. history, though stats available through the National Interagency Fire Center, which tracks fire acreage and cost, are not adjusted for inflation, the agency has previously told the Daily Montanan.

But it’s a flawed assumption that fires can be put out, said Chad Hanson, a research ecologist, an author and the co-founder of the John Muir project, calling into question the amount state and federal governments spend on suppression.

He went on to say that studies by the U.S. Forest Service regarding forest density are flawed, saying money currently being spent on suppression and many fire mitigation practices would be better spent on hardening homes against fire.

“Pretty much everything that we’ve been told about fire in our forests is incorrect, scientifically,” Hanson said. “And it’s not just some loose theory.”

‘A wink and a nod’

Hanson and several fellow researchers have authored studies in response to research from the U.S. Forest Service regarding density in forests.

The density question is fundamentally a disagreement over forestry practices. The general idea among those in support of logging and thinning to reduce fire risk is that suppression practices on wildfires in the United States have led to forests that are too dense. They say there used to be many small intensity fires in the nation’s forests and that thinning and prescribed burns will replicate this natural process.

It’s a focus of a Sen. Sheehy bill — the Fix Our Forest Act — currently moving through Congress. The bill would also make it easier for land management agencies to conduct thinning and prescribed burn operations. In practice, prescribed burns often cut down small trees and brush, which is known as mechanical thinning, which are then put into small piles and burned. 

And Hanson says that the assumption all American forests had frequent, low-intensity fires is fundamentally incorrect and that federal research left out information contrary to that.

“They omitted and didn’t mention massive amounts of data that showed that historical forests were really variable,” Hanson said. “There were open forests, for sure, but there were also a lot of really, really dense forests, a lot of forests in between. This really simplistic notion that the forests were all open and park-like at low density, is not even remotely accurate based on the science and that’s not a contested notion.”

That’s not to say Hanson is against prescribed burns — there’s places where it could help, he said — but he does think the forests are closer to their natural density than some federal studies would suggest. Hanson and other researchers, including William L. Baker, a University of Wyoming professor, wrote a peer-reviewed review of a federal study called “Evidence for widespread changes in the structure, composition and fire regimes of western North American forests.”

The Baker paper found most evidence was omitted in the federal study was information that, “does not support their low-severity model, including 10 published rebuttals of their papers.”

The federal study included logging interests, the Missoula Fire Science Laboratory and Environmental and Forestry Departments from major state schools across the west, including the University of Washington, UC Berkeley, Northern Arizona, Penn State, Utah State, Oregon State and Arizona. It also included the Nature Conservancy, as well as various state and federal land management agencies.

Many of those researchers get money from the U.S. Forest Service, Hanson said, which has priorities of its own.

“Under federal laws, the Forest Service can sell trees on public lands to private logging companies and keep most of the revenue generated from those timber sales for its own budget, using the money to pay staff and buy new equipment,” Hanson writes in his 2021 book, Smokescreen. “This creates a powerful perverse financial incentive for Forest Service staff to ignore wildlife and recreational impacts and emphasize industrial logging.”

It’s important to note, Hanson said, that the Forest Service is in charge of managing the nation’s forests, not necessarily protecting trees.

“We’ll do all these logging operations, we’ll call it thinning and fuel reduction, with a wink and a nod, and it will tell communities it’ll stop the fire from reaching the towns,” Hanson said. “And that is a dangerous lie, because that’s not what’s happening. The fires are blowing right through those thin areas.”

It’s the same logic the Fix Our Forest Act is based on, Hanson said, which is why it’s drawn criticism from some environmental groups like the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and EarthJustice.

“Prescribed fire doing preventing stand replacement fire is immediate massive loss of wildlife habitat,” said Sara Johnson, an environmental advocate who founded Native Ecosystems Council. “It prevents stand replacement fire, which is a huge benefit to wildlife.”

‘Active forest management’

In 2020, the Montana Forest Action Plan, a report commissioned under then-Governor Steve Bullock found 3.8 million acres of Montana’s forests “in greatest need of attention” 

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, who spent 14 years with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, has said the nation’s forests are in trouble because they’re not being logged enough — and Gianforte, the state’s current Governor, is a noted supporter of the logging industry as well.

“Montana’s forest products industry has an important and necessary role in achieving landscape-scale forest restoration and management across the state,” the report states.

Less than 100,000 acres per year were being treated in Montana in 2020, according to the report. That number appears to have increased — earlier this year, the Forest Service said they conducted hazardous fuels reduction work on 200,000 acres of Montana forest in 2024. The BLM conducted approximately 38,000 acres of prescribed burns last year.

“Active forest management, such as mechanical thinning and prescribed fire, is one of the most important tools to reduce the risk and severity of wildfire alongside a robust community preparedness strategy,” the report reads. “This approach is especially important in the low-elevation fuel types where past fire suppression has had the greatest impact in terms of in- creased fuel loading.”

A separate 2020 report commissioned by the DNRC found that 85% of the state’s forests are at an increased risk of wildfire. According to the agency, historical Montana fires were characterized by frequent, low-intensity fire that mostly burned surface fuels without killing mature trees. 

This also occasionally included moderate or higher severity fire, agency spokesperson Anna Lau wrote in an email. Lau went on to say that the state’s low- to mid-elevation forests, which are mostly ponderosa pine and Douglas fir, fires would typically occur every 5 to 30 years. That maintained open forest structures and created variability in the forest, Lau wrote.

“It’s important to recognize that high-intensity, stand-replacing fires play a natural and necessary role in certain ecosystems particularly at higher elevations, such as subalpine fir and lodgepole pine forests,” Lau wrote. “These forests have evolved with infrequent but severe fires that reset ecological succession.”

The DNRC does prescribed burns as well and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has a call every day in the fall with the U.S. Forest Service to discuss the day’s burn requests.

Smoke from prescribed burns is a concern and EQC members heard from one woman who described significant smoke impacts. Logging has no smoke impacts, which EQC chair Rep. Paul Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, brought up.

“There’s different options for managing forests,” Fielder said. “You can do prescribed burns, or you can do thinning and other methods of reducing the fuel loads there. And as long as we just say prescribed burns are the best way to go without looking at other options. I think we’re not considering the health effects of this.”

A 2025 Stanford study showed prescribed burns “can meaningfully reduce smoke emissions,” from wildfires. And the DEQ has multiple factors it considers in those decisions.

“Burn decisions are determined based on how efficiently the smoke is going to exit the community,” DEQ meteorologist Aaron Ofseyer said in a statement. “A critical metric for determining this is the ventilation index. This index is calculated by multiplying the mixing height and the transport wind. The higher the index, the more likely the DEQ is to approve a burn.”

For those deeply involved with the work, like Tim Rochell, a prescribed fire expert with Missoula County, there’s been movement in public perception of the issue. 

“What we’re doing right now is we’re changing a culture like people have been taught to be afraid of fire, as opposed to something that’s a natural part of our landscape,” Rochell said. “And I think we’re slowly starting to change that.”