Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A • FA L L 2 0 1 7 80 A BOUT 30 YEARS AGO, WHEN I FIRST STARTED ROAMING THE WILDS OF MONTANA, I glimpsed the dramatic influence of wildfire on the state's landscapes: how it determined what trees I was seeing in the forests— affecting even the shapes of the trees, as well as how they were spaced. How it drove the comings and goings of the grasses and the birds and the insects. And too, that wildfire was a kind of healing agent—clearing fallen timber and debris from the forest floor, checking the spread of disease and tree-boring insects. And finally, in this arid state, where decomposers are few, fire revealed itself as the primary means by which essential nutrients held in the timber were ultimately returned to the soil. While all this is still true, the fact is the nature of wildfires is changing. ey're burning hotter, faster, and bigger than ever before. Given this dangerous development, it's a good time to take a closer look at our communities and the landscapes we treasure against this new reality—to get a better sense of where we are, how we got here, and some of what we'll need to know to live well with wildfire in the years to come. WHERE WE ARE Since 2000, in the West there have been an astonishing 10 fire seasons with over a dozen mega- fires, which are loosely defined as individual burns of more than 100,000 acres. Roughly 90% of the lands burned in the West in a given year are from less than 3% of the fires. Since 2000, the Forest Service has routinely drained its wildfire suppression budget—part of a federal effort that in many years tops $3 billion a year. Understandably, most of that money is being spent fight- ing fire in the so-called wildland-urban interface, or WUI, which can be thought of as any area where human structures come up against runs of natural vegetation. Roughly 200 million acres of the WUI— an area roughly twice the size of California—has been deemed to be at high risk of wildfire. This article is based on Gary Ferguson's new book, Land on Fire, the New Reality of Fire in the West, published by Timber Press, an imprint of Workman Publishing. Devastating Lodgepole fire in July www.distinctlymontana.com/fire174 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL by GARY FERGUSON Airtanker battling Chelan Butte fire BEN BROOKS Yellowstone firefighter in Nomex

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