MISSOULA — Wildfire was the topic at hand at Monday's City Club Missoula meeting, and with the fires earlier this year in LA, wildfire mitigation was top of mind.
“Missoula is at about the 92nd percentile nationwide. That means that it has a greater risk than about 92% of other communities across the US,” said Greg Dillon, director of the Fire Modeling Institute at the Fire Sciences Laboratory for the United States Forest Service.
Watch to learn more about wildfire mitigation in Missoula:
Dillon says that with Missoula’s location, the risk to the city is cause for some concern.
“The same factors that cause other wildfire disasters, like what we saw in LA, like what we've seen in Lahaina and other high-profile cases, you have all the right factors in the right place, and they come together with the weather conditions that drive that fire into the community. The same type of thing could happen here in Missoula,” said Dillon.
With the risk of wildfire in an urban area like Missoula, fire mitigation is one of the few tools at homeowners' hands, as Missoula contains homes that are largely built with wood. For the city and county, working with homeowners on mitigation techniques is the best option they have with the circumstances they are given.
“Within our office, we have a wildfire mitigation program where we have people who work 365 days out of the year who will come and meet with property owners to do a home assessment,” said Missoula Office of Emergency Management director Adriane Beck.
Beck also told MTN that with the risk the community of Missoula faces, being prepared for the worst is one of the best steps someone can take.
“In those extreme conditions where you're not going to have enough resources to be able to put that fire out and in many ways it's it's working with the community building that trust so that when we say it's time to evacuate that that they understand that we mean that,” said Beck.
If you're interested in learning more about mitigating the fire risk for your home, head to the DNRC Wildfire Risk Assessment, Missoula County Fire Protection Association, or Missoula County’s Wildfire Preparedness website.
