Don't conflate California with Montana

The wildfire cost audit done by the Montana DNRC concluded that rural forest owners ought to pay for wildfire suppression costs because they are the primary beneficiaries.  

I have worked with rural forest landowners across both Idaho and Montana for more than 40 years. The vast majority of landowners invested most of their income, work and free time into their properties with the main goal of protecting and conserving their forest. They are regular folks that were willing to endure living remotely because prior to Covid, that was where they could afford to buy affordable land and build a house.

The DNRC wildfire cost audit indicates that the biggest cost associated with wildfire suppression is protecting rural houses. Wildfires are landscape phenomenon driven by fuels, weather and topography. If allowed to burn, they can cover millions of acres like the big blowup of 1910. Across our modern West, wildfires are expected phenomenon that need to be contained and controlled at some point on the landscape, or they will burn across towns and kill people. 

This is well demonstrated by the more recent California fires such as the 2018 Camp fire and this years’ Palisades-Los Angeles fires. 

But it is a big mistake to conflate recent California fires with those of Montana.

Across Montana many wildfires are contained in the WUI because of the fuels reduction landowners have accomplished, often at their own cost. Plus, private forest lands mostly have good road access where fire crews can be very effective and safe.

If we do not control wildfires in the WUI, we will lose entire towns like in California where landowners have been prevented from practicing forest density reduction and other vegetation control due to state mandated over-concern for “native habitat” and no concern for the rural residents that live there.

- Peter Kolb, Missoula