Montana requests federal money for Windy Rock Fire
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) The state of Montana has turned to the federal government for money to support state firefighting efforts on a fire between Garrison Junction and Helmville.
On Thursday, the Governor’s Office announced that the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation received a Fire Management Assistance Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help pay the state’s costs related to the Windy Rock Fire in Powell County.
Around 600 firefighters with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the DNRC are assigned to the Windy Rock Fire, which is being overseen by a federal incident management team. It is not known how many of the firefighters are DNRC employees or how much the grant will reimburse. The DNRC did not respond to requests for more information.
States have to apply during the time that a “threat of a major disaster” exists and the grants are approved “in a matter of hours,” according to the FEMA website. The grants can go toward 75% of the state’s eligible firefighting costs, but before the grant is awarded, states must demonstrate that total eligible costs for the declared fire meet or exceed the fire-cost thresholds.
Montana has one of the lower state thresholds at $102,500. Eligible costs include materials and supplies, mobilization and demobilization, equipment use and expenses for field camps.
“Suppression of the Windy Rock Fire is challenging for our firefighters protecting our communities and homes as they brave long hours, rugged terrain, heavy fuel build up, and wind conditions,” said Governor Greg Gianforte in a release. “This grant will help reduce the financial impact to the state to continue fighting this fire safely and aggressively.”
The lightning-caused Windy Rock Fire started on Aug. 14 on BLM land near East Birch Creek Road. By Aug. 20, it had grown to an estimated 1,100 acres but the vast majority was still on BLM land. The affected BLM property is bounded on the east by private property checkerboarded among other BLM sections, and on the west by a section of state land and several sections of private land owned by Dubouis Montana out of Wisconsin.
On Aug. 20, the Devil Mountain Fire started in the Hoodoo Mountain Wilderness Study Area on BLM land less than a mile north of the Windy Rock Fire, so the two fires were combined and are being managed together. The BLM has closed all affected lands in Powell County to the public.
Crews have subsequently dealt with periods of winds, high temperatures, low humidity and thunderstorms as the fire burned in some steep terrain with downed fuels. As of noon Thursday, the two fires are approximately equal in size and together have affected around 3,900 acres, the vast majority of which is federal land.
According to Thursday’s incident overview, although the recent rain has helped crews mop up spot-fires, the Incident Team expects that the fire won’t be contained until the end of October. partly because structure protection is a priority for firefighters. The overview said the fire has crossed onto private land, “prompting ongoing structure assessments and protection efforts around the Garnet Mountain subdivision.”
Structure protection within the wildland-urban interface is putting greater demands on firefighters and firefighting budgets, especially as more people build in the WUI. A 2020 working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that a large portion of firefighting costs is spent trying to prevent damage to private homes that are built in high fire-risk areas near federal and state lands.
The increasing cost supports one of the arguments against proposals that would transfer federal lands to the states: the fact that states cannot afford to fight wildfires by themselves. Montana’s need for additional funds from the federal government is evidence of that. But Montana isn’t the only state that’s applied for FEMA money. Within the past month, FEMA grants have been granted for fires in Oregon, Wyoming, Hawaii and Colorado.
However, the FEMA grants might not be available for the states next year. In June, Trump said he wants to put more responsibilities on states to provide services following increasingly frequent and expensive climate disasters, according to the Associated Press.
“We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said during a June 10 Oval Office appearance with administration officials about preparations for summer wildfires.
FEMA’s already strained budget was further hampered by the recent Congressional passage of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” The bill adds several new programs - national border security and security and planning for the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics - that require $2.575 billion in FEMA funding, but it didn’t increase FEMA’s budget. So money will have to be shifted away from existing programs.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.