Legislative fire study highlights cost trends; LFD demonstrates interactive fire‑cost tool

The Environmental Quality Council spent a large portion of its meeting on the interim study of wildland fire suppression, hearing staff and data presentations intended to help lawmakers craft recommendations for the 2027 legislative cycle.

Jason Moore, committee staff, said the HB 70 study found ‘‘Forest and timber conditions continued to deteriorate,’’ and listed several agreed‑upon facts drawn from testimony, including an aging timber industry, a larger wildland‑urban interface and that aggressive initial attack remains the most cost‑effective suppression method.

The council then received a live demonstration of the Legislative Fiscal Division’s consumer fire tool from analyst Alice Hecht. ‘‘So far this year we’ve had almost 15,000 acres burned in the state, 471 fires,’’ Hecht said, and showed a map that identified new starts, prescribed burns and larger perimeters such as a roughly 4,000‑acre incident in Musselshell County. Hecht described the cost data as preliminary and recorded in the federal SABER reports and state SABERS system: ‘‘Estimated federal cost so far about $2,500,000; estimated state costs have gone over the half‑million mark,’’ she said, adding these figures are early and rounded.

Hecht walked council members through spatial risk layers that combine a wildfire hazard potential index (from the Missoula fire lab) with parcel‑level property values and recent fire perimeters. She emphasized the asymmetry between acreage and cost: in the data set she presented, roughly 4% of acres in ‘‘very high’’ hazard areas represented about one‑third of total suppression spending. The tool allows users to select incidents, inspect predominant fuel types, and show how mitigation treatments overlap burned areas.

Members pressed staff on follow‑up work that would make the tool more useful for policymaking. Questions centered on whether DNRC and DEQ air‑quality monitoring could be integrated, how mitigation projects and reimbursements are tracked, and whether the model can compare federal and state cost shares on specific fires. Hecht said some detailed reimbursement records exist in federal and state systems and that she could perform additional analyses on cost‑share and reimbursement timing. She also committed to making the tool and supporting files available to legislators on the committee SharePoint site and to posting an updated online version for broader access.

Several members asked that the presentation feed directly into the HB 70 recommendations. Staff urged the council to consider targeted draft legislation that draws on the tool’s ability to identify parcels where treatments are most likely to reduce suppression costs.

The council did not take formal votes on legislation during the session. Members directed staff to continue refining the tool’s outputs and to prepare options for draft recommendations at the next meeting, including possible statutory language or budget items tied to mitigation and data sharing.

What’s next: staff will upload the tool to committee SharePoint, follow up with DNRC and DEQ on data feeds (air monitoring and reimbursements), and return draft recommendation options in a future meeting.