Human Caused Fires Decline, but Fire Reports Double in Western Montana

August is traditionally the peak month for wildfires in western Montana and, so far, this year is already blazing hotter than last.

Fire prevention coordinator for the southwestern land office Cindy Super says that there have been 125 responses so far this year compared to only 57 at the end of July last year. Some of the responses in that total were false alarms, but Super says "that's a lot of activity. We may still be in what's called a normal year, but it's very active compared to the last couple years."

There is some good news on the firefighting front however as nearly all of the fire starts in Western Montana have been caused by lightning. Typically, human caused fires amount to about half of the fire starts, but thanks to citizens being cautions Super says that “we have not really had a human caused problem this year.”