Missoula experts press home hardening, local planning and prescribed fire as wildfire risk rises

Missoula — At a City Club Missoula forum in June 2025, wildfire experts, county planners and emergency managers described mounting wildfire risk in Missoula County and recommended a mix of home hardening, land-use updates, targeted fuels treatments and better community preparedness to reduce losses.

Kimmy Barrett, senior wildlife research and policy analyst at Headwaters Economics, opened the panel by framing the problem as one of structure vulnerability rather than wildlands alone. "This is not a wildfire problem. This is a home ignition problem," Barrett said, summarizing decades of research showing that embers, radiant heat and direct flame contact — not the presence of nearby green vegetation — are the primary causes of home loss in many community fires.

The forum brought local data and programs into the national context. Greg Dillon, director of the Fire Modeling Institute at the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab (U.S. Forest Service), described how simulation models and national mapping efforts (wildfirerisk.org) show where fire probability and intensity intersect with homes. Dillon said updated data place Missoula at about the 90th percentile for wildfire risk among U.S. communities and explained the lab's work to translate wildland hazard into community-scale risk zones tied to mitigation actions.

Why it matters: Panelists said treating wildfire as an issue of homes, roads and local planning shifts responsibility and tools toward municipal codes, subdivision rules, building standards and homeowner mitigation. County and city officials face tradeoffs between encouraging housing and limiting…