Consultants, county staff outline early public engagement and challenges for Missoula County wildfire plan

Jensen Hughes consultants and Missoula County staff briefed Missoula County commissioners on the early-stage community engagement for the county's Community Wildfire Protection Plan, outlining workshop schedules, outreach tactics and emerging themes from three initial sessions this week.

Consultants said they held four workshops this week, have a public survey live on the Missoula Voice page (the stakeholder survey runs through June 10), and are planning additional outreach this fall and next winter. "We did a postcard mailing" to households, one presenter said, and staff reported postcards helped bring people to at least one workshop.

The engagement approach uses two small-group breakout questions at meetings: (1) residents' concerns for homes, neighborhoods and communities; and (2) specific recommendations that could be incorporated into the CWPP. Presenters stressed the sessions aim to capture local observations and recommendations rather than technical solutions from the public.

Consultants emphasized outreach to stakeholder groups including fire-protection associations, forest-products groups and organizations serving residents with access or functional needs. Presenters said roughly one-third of county residents have some form of access or functional need (including older adults, people with disabilities and those with limited English proficiency), and noted that more than 60% of civilian wildfire fatalities have historically been concentrated in those populations.

"We're tired of waiting for you guys to burn. We want to do it ourselves," said Crystal Cen, a subcontractor for Jensen Hughes and a University of California professor of fire science, recounting requests from communities for training and regulatory changes that would enable neighborhood-level prescribed burning. Cen described growing private and neighborhood-led burn programs and training exchanges and said coordinated community efforts can scale treatments around homes. "Literally last year over 10,000 acres were burned by private citizens in California in the places that matter most around homes," she said.

Presenters also flagged a recurring constraint: restrictive air-quality regulations and the difficulty of marshaling multiple agencies and personnel during narrow burn windows. They said the combination of permitting limits and coordination challenges can make it hard to take advantage of safe opportunities for prescribed burning.

County staff described a short, five-minute public survey and an option to opt into a longer, 20-minute follow-up for deeper input on vulnerabilities, past wildfire experience and home improvements. The team will also conduct site visits with fire-behavior analysts in the next two to three weeks; staff asked commissioners to suggest priority locations for those visits.

Commissioners and presenters identified neighborhoods with limited ingress and egress—Patty Canyon, Rattlesnake, O'Brien Creek and Grant Creek—as recurring public concerns that may merit special planning attention. Presenters also noted public-health impacts from smoke events in recent years (Lolo, Rice Ridge, Liberty Fire) and discussed how CWPP work should account for both fire and smoke-related health risks.

The consultants recommended neighborhood-level outreach and community ambassadors, noted that a small number of active volunteers or HOA leaders can catalyze broader participation, and urged continuing a mix of public workshops, surveys and stakeholder meetings. Next steps include the ongoing public survey, forthcoming site visits, continued workshops and a second round of outreach in fall and late winter.

The consultants and county staff closed with plans to report back after the survey and site visits; commissioners were invited to attend local workshops and the team's Celia outreach event later that day.