You know that creaking noise a jack-in-the-box makes when it’s cranked a little too tight? That’s the sound fire weather forecasters are making as summer approaches North America.
And while early-season wildfires have already sent crews scrambling across Greater Yellowstone and beyond, the federal firefighting systems in charge of protecting public lands remain under construction after last year’s ambitious consolidation plans fizzled out. That leaves lots of open questions about what will pop out of the 2026 fire box.
Shortly after President Donald Trump began his second term last January, draft plans to remake the nation’s wildfire response into a single agency started circulating. By summer, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum were publishing budgets detailing how the U.S. Forest Service’s firefighting resources would be transferred from Agriculture to Interior. But the plan hit deep skepticism in Congress, which kept both agencies’ firefighting forces and dollars in their traditional places until a study could examine the change idea.
Others in Congress aren’t waiting for the homework to get turned in. On March 3, the House of Representatives marked up the Farm Bill, a massive omnibus of directives affecting agriculture, trade, food for the needy, rural development, energy, research, and crop insurance. Deep in the middle is a section on forestry, and deep inside that are numerous changes to how the nation will fight wildfire. Some of those changes could affect how this summer’s fire season is addressed.
Meanwhile, the relatively mild weather conditions that made 2025 one of the decade’s least destructive years have shifted ominously, with a freak March heatwave preceding a hot, dry summer in 2026. Last Friday, Bozeman’s daily high temperature of 74 was 33 degrees above average for March 20.
Around the new year, initial predictions called for a fairly neutral set of heat and precipitation levels for mid-2026’s fire conditions. But as March opened, new data indicated a “Super El Niño” phase could be developing. Climate scientist James Hanson released an analysis in February noting that last year’s La Niña cool period was hotter than the peak “Super El Niños” of the past decade. Along with rougher West Coast snowstorms and Atlantic hurricanes over the course of the year, this forecast typically means hotter, drier conditions for the fire-prone forests of the American West.
The start of the calendar year is typically a low-activity fire period, but 2026 has tested that rule. That included a mid-February blizzard which drove huge fires across the plains of Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, mid-March fires now burning across the Great Plains, Montana’s 600-acre Panama Fire between Three Forks and Whitehall, and Wyoming’s 2,000-acre Kane fire east of Lovell.
“What we’ve seen already this year with the weather, and some of the fire conditions have shown rapid escalation in fire behavior, rapid fire growth,” Forest Service Deputy Chief of Fire and Aviation Sarah Fisher said in a 2025 Year In Review presentation. “We’re seeing a lot longer fire seasons. We’re seeing fires that go on for an extended period of time.”
In Montana, brush fires broke out near Clyde Park, Garryowen and Laurel as arctic winds blasted bare grasslands in early March. Most of Wyoming was under a red flag warning on March 21. Hundreds of residents near Roundup, Montana, received evacuation notices on February 26 as the Rehder Creek Fire made a 5,000-acre run approximately 35 miles north of Billings.
“We’ve had critical fire weather conditions in southwest Montana for several days,” National Weather Service meteorologist Travis Booth told Mountain Journal on March 20. “The coming pattern is still conducive for wind, and we’re not expected to receive much moisture.”
Most of Montana and Idaho have been experiencing a “top-five” warmest winter, according to NIFC’s seasonal outlook released in February. Nevertheless, a complicated mix of wet December storms and dry January conditions have led to a decrease in drought concerns, especially in western Montana.
“Close attention should be given to the recovery, or lack thereof, of mid-elevation snow in areas that typically offer opportunities for prescribed fire in the spring,” the outlook stated. “Not only might snow be absent during burning operations, but a prolonged lack of snow cover could lead to abnormally low fuel moisture in large dead fuels, creating conditions that differ significantly from what burners typically expect in those areas.”
The West has “well-below normal” snowpack levels so far, but a more active weather pattern in late winter and early spring could bring that closer to average. AccuWeather’s forecasters warn Greater Yellowstone faces early-season dry spells that raise wildfire concerns for the summer.
“Close attention should be given to the recovery, or lack thereof, of mid-elevation snow in areas that typically offer opportunities for prescribed fire in the spring.”
National Interagency Fire Center, Seasonal outlook, March-June 2026
As this story was going to press on March 24, national weather forecasters were still tallying the stats stemming from a “record-breaking heat dome” over the southwestern United States. The Coachella Valley in California hit 109 degrees in mid-March, one of 430 places nationwide that set new temperature benchmarks for the period.
The National Climate Prediction Center calls for more above-normal temperatures and below-average precipitation from April through June in most of the western United States. The greatest likelihood of below average moisture is in the Pacific Northwest and Central Rockies.
“The Climate Prediction Center outlook for late spring and early summer in the West is not favorable,” NIFC meteorologist Jim Wallmann said in the 2025 Year in Review. “A very warm late spring into early summer is likely, along with drier than normal conditions for most of the West. If this forecast is correct, a very busy and long western peak fire season is likely.”
March 20 was the first day of spring. On March 23, the Billings National Weather Service office issued a Fire Weather Watch affecting the forests between Bozeman, West Yellowstone and Big Timber. On the 24th, Red Flag Warnings blanketed maps from south-central Montana to Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, examining the staffing and structure of federal wildfire services after a year of political tumult.
