Montana

Montana’s prolonged fire season slugs along toward conclusion

Published

1 year ago

October 30, 2024

Montana’s prolonged fire season slugs along toward conclusion

Fire season in Montana still has not ended. Thirty-five fires continue to burn across the state, though the combined acreage makes up a small amount of the total burned this season.

A continued drought in the east will help maintain fire-prone conditions through early November, though Monday night brought precipitation and cooler temperatures to western Montana, according to Dan Zumpfe, a meteorologist based in Missoula for the National Weather Service.

“Certainly for western Montana, it looks like we’re going to be out of fire season, for the most part,” Zumpfe said.

Along the Hi-Line, the weather service reported cold temperatures and even snow. Small amounts of precipitation in southwestern Montana, in addition to an oncoming cold front, dampened the state’s largest fires in Ravalli County. Meteorologists reported that central Idaho’s large fires received even more rain, supplying new optimism for Montana’s air quality.

190,000-acre burn challenges eastern Montana ranchers

Outside Jim Gilliland’s window, just 200 yards from his house near Otter, blackened ground marked the Remington Fire’s farthest advance. Eighty of Gilliland’s hay bales burned in the fire, leaving him with only 20. The blaze consumed a water tank, its lining made of six-inch-thick rubber. “I feel worse about the cows,” Gilliland said.

“The nature of this cool-season weather system contributes to better air quality,” Zumpfe said.

Wildfires spread faster during the day, so fewer hours of daylight reduce their growth rates. Decreasing temperatures throughout the early winter also combat rapid fire growth. But without enough precipitation to qualify as a “season-ending event,” wildfire danger persists across eastern Montana and low elevations of western Montana. According to Shawn Palmquist, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Billings, some parts of the state aren’t expecting extensive precipitation for the next eight to 14 days.

“Areas south and east of Yellowstone County are anywhere from moderate to extreme droughts,” Palmquist said, noting that snow is forecast at some higher elevations.

A low-pressure system, a large area of low atmospheric pressure often accompanied by humidity and precipitation, over Idaho split in two, with one portion moving over Canada and the other through Wyoming. After moving inland from the Pacific Ocean, low-pressure systems often divide during their eastward journey from Idaho, leaving much of Montana without precipitation for extended periods.

The southern perimeter of the Horse Gulch Fire remains charred 10 weeks after the 15,000-acre burn.
Credit: Zeke Lloyd / MTFP

This phenomenon had major impacts over the course of the 2024 fire season, according to the National Weather Service.

“Eastern Montana, especially far southeastern Montana, has had some of the driest areas that we forecasted over the last summer and into the fall,” Palmquist said.

According to Cory Calnan, who serves as the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation deputy chief for the Fire Protection Bureau, southeastern Montana’s fire season has been marked by frequent and fast-paced burns.

“We routinely have fire activity in that area, but just sheer volume, particularly in the Tongue River Basin, of acres burned and the impacts to the agriculture communities there are pretty notable,” Calnan said.

The Remington Fire, a late-August fire that blew northward from northeastern Wyoming, stands out as one of the largest Montana fires of the last decade. The Remington’s burn scar covers ranchland across three Montana counties, altogether accounting for roughly half of the 443,000 Montana acres burned by wildfire this season.

Prolonged fire season complicates prescribed burns

Montana’s western forests, as well as its eastern plains, have been shaped by fire, purposeful and otherwise, over the course of millenia. Prescribed burns represent the human application of fire on terrain, using intentional combustion to clear excess ground fuel within a well-monitored perimeter. Rarely, controlled burns grow wild.

Without the Remington Fire, the number of acres burned this season would be relatively standard in comparison to the seasons of the past decade. But with almost 200,000 acres burned by the Remington Fire alone, the 2024 fire season instead ranks behind only two from the last 10 years: 2021 and 2017.

The 2024 fire season also saw fires more frequently in proximity to large urban areas than in previous seasons. The Horse Gulch Fire burned 20 miles north of Helena, the Miller Peak Fire burned eight miles southeast of Missoula and the Sharrott Creek Fire burned five miles west of Hamilton. Calnan highlighted the agency’s central mission to defend people and their residences from fire through a strict suppression policy.

“For us in the state of Montana, and the values that we protect, rapid, safe, aggressive, initial attack is the best tool we have,” said Calnan, who also highlighted the more widespread use of infrared-equipped aircraft to firefighting crews.

The southern edge of the Barber Draw Fire, a 6,000-acre fire, stretches to the Tongue River Reservoir.
Credit: Zeke Lloyd / MTFP

“We call these Incident Awareness and Assessment Aircraft,” Calnan said. “We have a relatively high certainty where lightning strikes are occurring. We were able to fly that aircraft the morning after lightning and detect fires that had not yet been detected.”

For land-managing agencies, the upcoming off-months offer opportunities to find other new technologies for the next season and review their firefighting strategies. And even without a substantial amount of the state burning, the fire season’s impact will stretch well into the winter.

Agencies are still finalizing their cost analyses of fire season, agreements that allocate large sums of money and sometimes spur contentious correspondence. On Oct. 9, Gov. Greg Gianforte shared a letter rebuking the Forest Service over a potential cost-sharing breakdown for the Horse Gulch Fire, a late-July blaze that cost more than $14 million to fight.

How fire remakes Montana’s landscapes

Within their brief lifespans, wildfires bring dramatic changes to Montana’s forests and grasslands. But many of the most lasting effects on the landscape appear in the weeks, months and years after the flames are snuffed out.

Montana reinvested in firefighting resources during the 2023 legislative session. In a July interview with Montana Free Press, Gianforte highlighted legislation that introduced more than $100 million for firefighting-related expenditures, including “fire suppression costs,” “fuel reduction and mitigation” and “forest restoration.” Firefighters at the state level say they see its impact on the ground.

“In Montana, we’re very fortunate for House Bill 883 and the ability to invest in state-controlled resources and assets to help us respond to fires,” Calnan said.

Though this season’s fires did not stretch the state’s resources, out-of-state blazes kept much of Montana’s sky hazy throughout the summer. Wildfire smoke poured in from Canada throughout July. Wyoming, Washington and Idaho fires exported unhealthy air over Montana later in the fire season.

As winter weather clears away smoke across the region, prescribed fires are again on the docket for land-managing agencies across the state. Pile burning, a type of prescribed burn featuring forest debris that’s been organized into well-separated clumps, will begin when snow falls at lower elevations around the state.

“Pile burning activities, those are done when there’s adequate snow on the ground — that’s a low resource requirement and low resource input impact there,” Calnan said. “So we’ll see those start as we see the conditions moderate even further.”

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Montana

February 26 recap: Missoula and Western Montana news you may have missed today

Published

11 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

February 26 recap: Missoula and Western Montana news you may have missed today

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Montana

Escobar, Jayapal, Members of Congress Call on Camp East Montana to be Shut Down – Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal

Published

23 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Escobar, Jayapal, Members of Congress Call on Camp East Montana to be Shut Down – Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16) – joined by Representative Pramila Jayapal, the Ranking Member of the Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Subcommittee, and 22 other Members of Congress – sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons calling for the immediate closure of Camp East Montana in El Paso. They cite urgent humanitarian concerns following multiple deaths in custody, documented unsafe conditions, and serious deficiencies in medical care.

This marks the fourth letter Congresswoman Escobar has sent to DHS and ICE leadership. The previous three letters have gone unanswered.

The letter can be found in its entirety below and here.

“Secretary Noem and Acting Director Lyons:

We are urgently calling on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS or the Department) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to shut down Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas.

Camp East Montana has been operational for six months, and at least three people have died at the site since December 2025: Francisco Gaspar-Andres, Geraldo Lunas Campos, and Victor Manuel Diaz. The El Paso County Medical Examiner has officially ruled Lunas Campos’ death a homicide, citing “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”

Camp East Montana was constructed in a matter of weeks and opened before construction was complete and it does not have enough federal staff on-site to provide adequate oversight. Over the last several months, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, in whose district this facility is located, has sent multiple letters to DHS and ICE regarding concerns about the conditions at Camp East Montana, and has received no responses.

According to detainees, there have been constant and consistent problems at the facility since it opened, beginning with the facility’s poor construction and poor ambient temperature control. Upon opening, the drinking water at Camp East Montana tasted foul and made some detainees sick. Detainees continue to be served inadequate meals, including food that is rotten or frozen; last fall, the facility was also consistently failing to make dietary accommodations for detainees. Detainees have shared that they have sporadic access to outside spaces and recreational areas, and that their dormitory pods are cleaned only once every eight days, despite pods housing up to 72 people at a time. Laundry services are not consistent, and people are washing their clothes in the facility showers. Additionally, the facility experiences flooding and sewage backups when it rains, leading to stagnant water.

One of the biggest concerns with the Camp East Montana facility is the inadequate medical care being provided to detainees. Our offices have heard that only the most ill detainees are referred to the medical unit and that there are inconsistencies as to how soon after arriving detainees are able to undergo initial medical screenings. Detainees with chronic health issues who rely on regimented medications for their health have had difficulty accessing necessary medications, including blood pressure medication and insulin.

At least one of the deaths that occurred in ICE custody, the death of Francisco Gaspar-Andres, appears to partially be the result of poor medical care by staff at the facility. According to ICE’s own account, Gaspar-Andres sought medical attention from facility staff for increasingly serious symptoms, but was only transferred to an area hospital once his condition had severely deteriorated.

In addition to our concerns about poor medical care, we are also aware that detainees have experienced irregular access to their legal counsel, including instances of detainees having only two minutes allotted per phone call every 8 days, which is contrary to ICE’s Detention Standards on access to counsel, and that the belatedly created law library lacks adequate resources for the amount of people currently held at the facility. In January 2026, ICE announced the on-site death of Geraldo Lunas Campos “after experiencing medical distress.” ICE opened an investigation into the death, but did not provide a cause of death. However, The Washington Post later reported that another man detained at Camp East Montana had witnessed guards choking Lunas Campos when he refused to enter a segregated housing unit. Weeks later, the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled that Lunas Campos had experienced “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression” and ruled his death a homicide.

Lunas Campos is the first detainee to die at Camp East Montana as a result of a use-of-force incident, but we are strongly concerned that he will not be the last if ICE is allowed to continue operating Camp East Montana.

ICE was given $45 billion in taxpayer dollars in the reconciliation bill, $1.2 billion of which were awarded to Acquisition Logistics, LLC, a company with no previous experience managing immigration detention facilities, to build and oversee Camp East Montana. However, in the wake of three deaths in custody so far, continued concerns about conditions at the facility, and ICE’s apparent disinterest in responding to oversight letters from Congress, we do not believe Camp East Montana is being run professionally or responsibly.

Camp East Montana must be shut down. For the safety of everyone at the facility, for an end to abuses to detainees, and for fiscal responsibility to the American people, the site cannot continue to operate. We are calling on DHS and ICE to move to immediately close operations at Camp East Montana.

We look forward to hearing from the Department promptly on this matter.

The other co-signers include Representatives Yassamin Ansari, Nanette Barragán, Yvette Clarke, Lloyd Doggett, Maxwell Frost, Jesús “Chuy” García, Sylvia Garcia, Daniel Goldman, Jimmy Gomez, Henry Johnson, Stephen Lynch, Seth Moulton, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Delia Ramirez, Andrea Salinas, Janice Schakowsky, Darren Soto, Rashida Tlaib, Paul Tonko, Lauren Underwood, Gabe Vasquez, and Nydia Velázquez.

Issues: Immigration

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Montana

Governor’s energy task force continues public discussions on data centers

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Governor’s energy task force continues public discussions on data centers

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