On an average year, something between 300,000 and 500,000 acres in Montana end up scorched by wildfires. In 2017, Montana recorded 1.4 million acres burned, which is the most acreage lost to wildfires in a single modern recorded year in state history (not accounting for the historic Great Fire of 1910, which burned roughly 3 million acres across Montana and Idaho).
Worse
than this, fires have the capability to sweep through the most modern of
cities. Just this year, a fire ravaged a neighborhood in Spokane, Washington.
One
leg of prevention is controlled fires, more aptly tagged as “prescribed burns,”
owing to the fact that fires can be only marginally controlled, and calling
them controlled is a bit over-optimistic.
Yesterday,
a prescribed burn was initiated behind Mount Helena. It’s jarring to be driving
around Helena while smoke billows up from a wide sweep of land just beyond the
city.
Hopefully,
the wind will remain settled and this fire remains only a half-threat. I have
posted a photograph Desiree captured as we drove through town.
—Mitchell
Hegman
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