Pay increase, fuels projects boost wildland firefighter optimism in season ahead

Montanans can feel fortunate to have experienced a relatively quiet wildland fire season in 2022. Data from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) shows that fewer than 125,000 acres burned in Montana last year, less than a tenth of what burned in 2017 when 1.4 million acres were blackened and 141 structures destroyed.

Each spring the Montana Governor’s Office brings together local, state, tribal, and federal fire management officers to try and access current wildland fire conditions and the various agencies state of preparedness heading into fire season. The overall message coming out of last Tuesday’s meeting in Helena was we’re prepared, but we need citizens and local communities to do their part as well.

Governor Greg Gianforte opened the 2023 Fire Briefing by reflecting upon last year’s successes.

“Ninety-five percent of last year’s fires under state control were kept to 10-acres or less,” Gianforte said, “and that’s a direct result of the aggressive attack posture that we took with these fires. Last year we doubled the number of acres under active forest management. We treated 31,000 acres in the state of Montana, and to put that in perspective in 2020 we only treated 11,000 acres – so nearly triple in just a couple of years. That’s real progress.”

“As result of this legislative session just completed last week, we are investing $30 million in wildfire risk reduction and forest health projects,” the Governor added. “These are state resources that we can use to collaborate with our federal partners, and we look forward to doing that. We’re also investing an additional $30 million to increase the state’s wildfire response and initial attack capabilities.”

At the state level most wildland management and wildfire suppression response are coordinated through the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC). That agency’s Fire Protection Bureau Chief, Matt Hall, told Gianforte that firefighter recruitment and retention was significantly boosted after starting wages for those positions was raised last year

“To date we have over 80% of our seasonal positions filled,” Hall said. “On the state employee pay plan we’re excited to increase the wildland firefighter starting wage to $17.55/hour this year. We anticipate that support to help us be fully staffed next month.”

Hall added that the DNRC now operates seven interagency dispatch centers, 46 wildland fire engines, four helicopters and three fixed wing aircraft. Those assets will be positioned in Kalispell, Missoula, Helena, and Billings this year.

He cautioned that the DNRC cannot mitigate wildfire risk alone and that private property owners and local governments have an important role to play.

“We need citizens to prepare their homes, communities and counties for the wildfire hazards we face,” Hall said. “As our communities and infrastructure grow and develop across the state, we must ensure that they are built with wildfire resiliency in mind and minimize their vulnerabilities to wildfires.”

The U.S. Forest Service manages roughly 17.4 million acres of public land in Montana, making it the state’s largest land management and wildland firefighting agency. Leanne Martin, Regional Forester for USFS Region 1 said its firefighting resources are now nearing what they were during the 2022 wildfire season.

“That is up to 2,000 personnel ranging from aviation to engine crews, the hot shots, smoke-jumpers and all the above,” Martin said. “Federally we’ve been working on increasing firefighter pay and helping to get the benefits to our personnel on the ground. And we are working closely with our Job Corp Centers. We have our kitchen crews and our hand crews and a lot of students in our Job Corp Centers that are working with us, which is a great resource and an opportunity for students. It’s just a win-win.”

She said the Forest Service completed fuel mitigation projects on approximately 100,000 acres of U.S. Forest Services lands in 2022 and plans to treat an equal number of acres, both mechanically and with controlled burns in 2023.

Martin emphasized the importance of the Good Neighborhood Authority (GNA), a program rolled out under the 2014 Farm Bill that allows states to work on behalf of federal agencies to carry out management and restoration projects on federal lands.

Last summer the Governor’s Office announced the largest scale GNA project in Montana history. The project is a decade long agreement between Montana and the U.S. Forest Service to treat up to 10,000 acres of land per year in the Kootenai National Forest near Libby. Priority is being given to areas along the Wildland/Urban Interface (WUI) where homes and businesses are most at risk from wildfire.

“We’ve been expanding that across the state,” Martin said of Good Neighborhood Authority projects. “We’re working with Director Amanda Kaster (DNRC) and her staff on looking at other areas where we could use the lessons learned from up in the Libby area.

Fuels reduction projects were a top point of emphasis from many of the agencies reporting at Wednesday’s Fire Briefing, including the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which manages close to 8.1 million acres in Montana, most of it in the eastern half of the state.

“This year we plan to complete about 45,000-acres of hazardous fuels reduction,” said the State Director for the BLM in Montana, Sonja Germann. “Nearly 80% of that is going to be within the Wild Land Urban Interface (WUI). And between this year and next year we’re going to be completing almost 10,000 acres of fuels reduction in Montana Forest Action Plan priority areas.”

“Our firefighting workforce remains stable, and we plan to continue to grow our staffing through the bi-partisan infrastructure law and the omnibus appropriations,” she continued. “This year we’ll be staffing 18 wildfire engines, two Type III helicopters and one Type II initial attack veteran hand-crew, which we’re really proud to put together.

“We have approximately 215 firefighters and an additional 200 support personnel ready to respond to wild land fires and other disasters. Out of nearly 700 people in our organization over 400 of those individuals have fire qualifications and will be actively participating in fires this season.”

Gianforte ended the Fire Briefing by noting that starting all wildfires from starting is an impossibility, but “the better prepared we are, the safer and more effective our firefighters can be.”

May is Wildfire Awareness Month in Montana. To learn more about preparing for fire season and steps to become fire-adapted, visit https://www.mtfireinfo.org/.

This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: Firefighters prepared for 2023 season, but caution more needs to be done