| "Montana Communities and Wildfire" was the topic of a conference during the early spring of 2006. The 250-plus attendees represented private landowners, wildland-management agencies, timber companies, fire departments, planners, foresters, environmental organizations, along with local, state, and federal agencies who realize that something needs to be done collectively to protect Montana communities from wildfire.
A product of that conference, it was decided, needed to be a collaborative structure to define solutions to the issues that impact the wildland/urban interface, and the forest landscape as a whole.
FireSafe Montana is now a reality! Two years have passed and the focus of FiresSafe Montana's conference scheduled for Feb. 25-27, 2008, in Bozeman is to foster the development of local groups of individuals from all disciplines within a community to plan locally the mitigation of the wildland fire hazard that exists.
FireSafe Montana is encouraging public/private partnering at the local level and asking you to be involved in this statewide effort.
Montana experienced another severe wild fire season in the summer of 2007. Structures were once again lost in those fires. The overwhelming majority of structures were saved. It is the belief of FireSafe Montana that it is long past the time to seriously address the myriad issues that revolve around Montana’s fire season, beginning with the wildland fuel-hazard reduction.
Asset protection through "defensible space," or "disaster-resistant landscaping" for structure protection, and forest-restoration practices are tools the group will be promoting to hopefully ease the severity of future fire seasons.
By funding projects designed to mitigate fire hazard, using some of the dollars that are now being spent on wildfire suppression, can certainly reduce overall spending in the long run.
The FireSafe Montana Conference, Montana Communities and Wildfire, will be held at the Holiday Inn in Bozeman Feb. 25-27, 2008.
The Agenda includes:
a keynote speech at Tuesday's luncheon by Dr. Robert Mutch who shares his compelling story about the 22 residents who died in the 2003 wildfires in California and lessons that can be learned from those fires;
a panel presentation by an interim committee of the Montana Legislature;
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a presentation by Faith Anne Heinsch, a University of Montana graduate student who studied under Professor Stephen Running, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for research on climate change, about the state’s current fire problems;
a panel presentation about fire trends and community risks; a presentation about changing fire suppression trends.
The agenda also includes a presentation what a local council can do with the opportunities to increase the mitigation activities in their area.
FireSafe Montana works in partnership with local, state, federal
agencies, and stakeholders and individuals to provide locally led conservation and fire management programs and services.
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