Missoula County expands wildfire mitigation outreach; offers 75% cost-share for vegetation work

Missoula County’s wildfire mitigation team is expanding outreach and preparedness services, offering free home risk assessments, a county chipping service and a cost-share program that covers most vegetation mitigation work, the county’s wildfire mitigation specialist said on the Missoula County Commissioners podcast.

Olivia Anderson, Missoula County wildfire mitigation specialist, said the program — funded in part by a Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) — now has a four-person team focused on community preparedness and home-hardening. “They're completely free, and they're really educational,” Anderson said of the one-on-one assessments that generate a risk rating in the county’s mapping system.

The nut of the county’s current mitigation assistance is the vegetation cost-share. “The county covers 75% and the homeowner's responsible for 25%,” Anderson said. The program pays contractors to remove small-diameter trees and ladder fuels to reduce the path of fire toward homes; Anderson said the county uses wildfire-mitigation specifications tied to county risk standards.

Anderson said the cost-share funded by the current CWDG does not cover some parts of the county (she named Frenchtown and Lolo) because of grant income requirements. The county is preparing to apply for another round of CWDG funding with the goal of expanding cost-share coverage to those areas.

In addition to vegetation work, the county operates “chip days,” using a county-owned chipper to collect and haul debris to Garden City at no charge to residents. Anderson named Seeley Lake and several drainages (O’Brien Creek, Grant Creek, Rattlesnake, Miller Creek and Patty Canyon) as areas where the county has focused work, and said the county maintains a list of contractors who perform mitigation under county specs.

Public education and small, practical home-hardening steps are central to Anderson’s strategy. She emphasized the home ignition zone closest to a house, especially 0–5 feet, and recommended simple actions homeowners can take without major expense — replacing wood mulch with rock, removing junipers near structures, screening attic vents with 1/8-inch metal mesh and keeping combustibles off porches. Anderson cited research showing ember intrusion is a primary cause of home loss in wildfires: “about 90 percent of homes are lost in a wildfire due to embers,” she said.

Anderson urged residents to prepare for smoke and evacuation as well as fire prevention — signing up for Missoula County’s Smart 911 alerts, assembling essentials (food, water, documents), planning for pets and livestock and following local burn-permit guidance. She also described partnerships across county departments (Missoula Public Health on smoke readiness, Parks/Trails/Openlands on fuels work at Marshall Mountain, Ecology and Extension on livestock evacuation) and collaborations with state and federal agencies including DNRC and the Forest Service.

The county is beginning an 18-month update of its Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) — last updated in 2018 — and Anderson said the process will include public meetings (Missoula meetings at the Butterfly House and sessions in Frenchtown, Seeley and Lolo) and a public survey so residents can weigh in on priorities.

On prevention, Anderson said human activity causes most fires and stressed basic precautions: attend to burn piles (water and stir, not burn on windy days), fully extinguish campfires, avoid dragging metal trailer chains and be cautious with equipment that can spark. “The number one cause of wildfires started by people in Missoula County are escape piles,” she said, and later added that roughly 70% of Montana wildfires are human-started.

The county’s wildfire mitigation program is focused on combining practical homeowner actions, targeted vegetation work funded by grants and community engagement to reduce risk. The program’s immediate next steps, Anderson said, are outreach for the CWPP update, continued home assessments and applying for further CWDG funding to expand the cost-share into currently excluded areas.

Commissioner Dave Strohmeyer hosted the episode and directed listeners to Missoula County communications for more information and to sign up for assessments via wildfiremitigation@missoulacounty.us or the county website. The podcast closed with routine sign-offs and links to county channels for updates.