Will Federal Freeze Stymie Wildland Fire Fights?

In the disaster-preparedness world, “blue-sky days” have nothing to do with the weather.

They refer to bits of time to prepare and train for expected trouble ahead. As March snow melts off the trees, public safety workers across the Greater Yellowstone are making plans to burn some of them in April and May before they catch fire on their own in July and August.

Yet despite growing evidence that such preparation is both effective and necessary, many communities have their 2025 wildfire mitigation and prescribed burning plans stuck on hold. Executive orders from President Donald Trump have frozen both federal funding and hiring at land management agencies including the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management which together field about 20,000 wildland firefighters each season. While court orders have found some of those moves illegal, few stakeholders have seen their money streams restored.

On February 21, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation issued a “stop work” order for all federally funded projects involving the Forest Service or BLM. “The length of this work stop remains uncertain and will depend on the federal review of funding,” the notice stated. “DNRC is not in control of that process.”

That affects the Community Wildfire Defense Grants many local and county governments have used to reduce their risk of becoming the next Fort McMurray, Lahaina or Los Angeles — places sadly known for losing thousands of urban homes to forest fires. A new analysis by Bozeman-based Headwaters Economics found 1,100 communities across the United States share similar wildfire risks.

“Big Sky and Livingston are on that map,” said Headwaters Associate Director Kelly Pohl. “They share the same risk characteristics as we saw in L.A. and Lahaina, and the Marshall Fire in Colorado and the Almeda Fire at Ashland, Oregon — all places that have had these disasters.”

An unrelated study by Bozeman-based Property and Environment Research Center examined forest conditions across the West for potential fire risk. Broken down by congressional district, it looks at the share of public land and how much of it has seen wildfire mitigation work.

PERC’s map shows that just over half of Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke’s District 1 in the western part of the state is managed by the Forest Service, and 55 percent of that is considered “high-risk” for wildfire. Between 2013 and 2023, 2 percent of that acreage was treated for wildfire resilience. Fellow Rep. Troy Downing’s eastern district covers more of the state but has far fewer trees, with just 8 percent managed by the Forest Service. Of that federal land, 37 percent is considered high-risk and 1 percent has been treated.

The average annual number of wildfires in the past decade has actually declined slightly. But the average acreage burned has more than doubled, from 3 million a year in the ‘80s to 7.5 million in the 2020s.

Idaho’s eastern congressional Rep. Mike Simpson has 34 percent of his acreage overseen by the Forest Service, of which 26 percent is considered high-risk. It also has 2 percent of its federal forests treated. Western Idaho Rep. Russ Fulcher’s district is considered one of the riskiest in the nation, with just under half in Forest Service ownership and 63 percent considered “high risk.” The agency has done wildfire mitigation work on 3 percent of that acreage.

“This map is a necessary tool to show where we’re falling behind in protecting our forests,” said Hannah Downey, policy director at PERC. “It reveals not just where fires have burned, but where they’re most likely to burn next and some of the obstacles to wildfire prevention — giving policymakers a blueprint for dramatically accelerating forest restoration efforts.”

That could mean major reshuffling of federal priorities. In 2023, the Forest Service needed $3 billion for its fire suppression efforts, but budgeted only $300 million for hazardous fuels management. 

It’s not just the Mountain West facing this threat. As of Monday, wildland firefighters battled more than 175 forest fires in North Carolina and South Carolina, triggering numerous evacuations for homeowners in the wildland-urban interface. A wildfire in northern Japan has displaced at least 4,600 people as a force of 2,000 firefighters attempt to restrain it.

The Forest Service estimates it has about 80 million acres in need of some kind of treatment to reduce wildfire risk. In 2023, it managed to complete prescribed burns on just 2 million acres nationwide. A big part of the backlog stems from the fact that most of the wood in those prescribed burns has little or no commercial value — nothing big enough to turn into a two-by-four — so the cost has to be borne by the government.

According to records from the National Interagency Fire Center, the average annual number of wildfires in the past decade has actually declined slightly, from 72,904 in 1985-1995 to 62,435 in 2015-2024. But the average acreage burned has more than doubled, from 3 million a year in the ‘80s to 7.5 million in the 2020s.

“There’s a convergence of trends increasing the risk in many places,” Pohl said of urban conflagrations. “We’ve got extreme weather, like winds and drought conditions, and then there are more homes built in these places, expanding the risks. More people equals more human ignitions. Couple that with the high vulnerability of housing in the U.S., you start to see these community wildfire disasters.”

Lots of 20th-century American homes feature wood-shingle roofs and siding, debris-filled gutters, flammable fencing and wood bark landscaping abutting walls, along with similar fuel sources. Under ordinary city circumstances, nobody would worry about them. But blast them with burning embers from a forest fire two miles away, and they become ignition points.

“It’s different than the typical wildfire burning through forest or shrubland,” Pohl said. “These disasters can start in a green space near a community, spread to buildings and then the buildings become the source of fuel.”

In another analysis released in January, Headwaters found the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program had been especially effective in reaching both high-risk and low-capacity parts of the nation.

“Nearly 60% of the 9,100 communities with high wildfire risk also face resource constraints,” the study reported. “Many of these communities — which rank below the national median of the Rural Capacity Index — lack the resources needed to plan and implement wildfire mitigation projects. For these communities, grant funding enables them to plan and implement risk reduction projects that would not otherwise be possible.”

That includes several Greater Yellowstone communities on the forefront of wildfire mitigation efforts. In 2023, Gallatin County landed one of four U.S. Forest Service grants awarded in Montana to improve wildland-urban interface landscapes. The $1.6 million award funds work on wildfire mitigation across the Gallatin Front, from Storm Castle to Bozeman Pass. The program also offers home assessments to show property owners how to harden their houses and make them less likely to become part of a forest fire’s fuel supply.

That affects 1,077 homes scattered across 30,211 high-priority acres along the fringe of Bozeman. The assessed value of that property in the treatment area is $809 million.

Park County landed a preliminary award of $250,000 in 2024 to do the analysis and scoping needed for a community wildfire plan, which would then direct the kind of defensive work Gallatin County has started in the woods.

Missoula County is furthest along in the wildfire mitigation space. It received almost $5 million in the 2024 Forest Service grant cycle to build on its “Fire Wise” urban and rural protection measures. County Disaster and Emergency Services Director Adrianne Beck said she’s been waiting for guidance from federal agencies on whether she can continue using the money.

“We have not had communications about the Community Wildlife Defense Grants, but we’re hearing they are about to be unfrozen,” Beck said on February 27. “We never received word one way or the other, so we’re going forward until we receive a stop-work order.”

Missoula’s funds come directly from the Forest Service rather than the Montana DNRC, so they aren’t affected by the state warning. But the federal agency’s fate holds other unknowns. It lost more than 3,400 employees in a federal purge of probationary workers on February 14.

While federal officials assured local communities that public safety workers such as wildland firefighters would be exempted or hired as usual on seasonal contracts, Beck said that may not provide the full wildfire protection force. For example, it’s unclear if dispatchers and logistics managers who provide the communications and gear for wildland fire crews are included in the exemptions or already lost in the firings. Federal fire dispatchers are not considered “primary fire personnel” by the Forest Service.

The growing concern for disaster preparedness has reached state as well as national levels. Beck said several bills in the Montana Legislature could help communities both prepare for and recover from the growing range of catastrophes bedeviling the Rocky Mountain West.

In particular, House Bill 127 would send extra state funds to DNRC to directly contract for private firefighting aircraft and hand crews, instead of depending on federal agencies. It would make permanent a successful pilot funding project passed in the 2023 session. HB 127 passed the House on a vote of 96 to 1 and is now in the Senate.

And House Bill 334 would provide $3 million for disaster and emergency service offices to handle recovery planning. Beck said that often-overlooked phase of disaster management can get local governments in big trouble. For example, communities that don’t carefully follow federal regulations when cleaning up debris after a disaster can forfeit access to federal reimbursements.

“When a large-scale disaster occurs, it’s very challenging to start recovery activity consistent with Stafford Act or FEMA requirements,” Beck said, referring to two federal emergency response laws. If we hadn’t made arrangements as quickly as we did, we would have been out millions of dollars. House Bill 334 would benefit everybody, not only immediately after a disaster, but to assist in training and planning in the blue-sky days ahead of disaster.”