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How flawed studies can lead to wrong, dangerous conclusions • Daily Montanan [1]

['Peter Kolb', 'Laura Collins', 'Mary Campbell', 'Pam Fuqua', 'Aubrey Bertram', 'More From Author', 'August', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus']

Date: 2025-08-21  

With another fire season upon us several news articles have appeared about the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation wildfire suppression cost audit that indicates on average taxpayers have paid $30+ million in wildfire costs per year. An audit was done of these costs (though it is unclear if this was done by the state or contracted out to a private entity) and indicated that rural private forest landowners are the main beneficiaries and essentially their rural lifestyles and homes are “subsidized” by state funding because they are the main beneficiaries of wildfire suppression.

The audit concluded that rural forest owners ought to pay the bulk of state agency wildfire suppression costs. Nothing could be more misleading and misguided, and the real question that needs answering is how much did the state pay for this so-called audit, who conducted it, and why was there no actual scientific review of the audit before being published?

As a forestry professional, scientist, and rural forest landowner, I have worked with rural forest landowners across both Idaho and Montana for more than 40 years. The vast majority of landowners invested most of their income, work and free time into their properties during their lifetime with the main goal of protecting and conserving a piece of nature. No exotic vacations to Hawaii, just work on their land in their spare time. They are ranchers, farmers, forest workers, mechanics, shopkeepers and mill workers that were willing to endure living remotely because prior to COVID, that was where they could afford to buy affordable land and build a house. Most of them enrolled in evening classes (that I have taught for over 40 years) to learn about their forest, practice good conservation for wildlife habitat, forest health, water quality and above all, minimize wildfire risks on their properties. And their efforts have paid off for the benefit of all Montanans.

The egregious fantasy portrayed by the DNRC wildfire cost audit is that the biggest cost associated with wildfire suppression is protecting rural houses. I would expect such a conclusion to be drawn by a bunch of statisticians whose understanding of forested landscapes comes from watching Disney’s Lorax. This is why “who did the audit” and “who reviewed it” before it was published is important. The bottom line is that wildfires are landscape phenomenon driven by fuels, weather and topography. If allowed to burn, they can cover millions of acres like the big blowup of 1910 where more than 3 million acres burned in over a week. There are numerous other examples including the Great Oregon fire of 1845, Peshtigo fire in 1871, Yellowstone fires of 1988, and many more recent forest fires here at home including the Valley Complex in 2000 that burned across the southern Bitterroot, and the Lolo Peak fire in the northern Bitterroot of 2017. Across our modern West, wildfires are expected phenomenon that need to be contained and controlled at some point on the landscape, or they will burn across towns and kill people. This is well demonstrated by the more recent California fires such as the 2018 Camp fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, killed many, and burned an estimated 19,000 structures. Likewise, this years’ Palisades-Los Angeles fires that destroyed more than 15,467 homes and killed more people. But it is a big mistake to conflate recent California fires with those of Montana.

I have reviewed almost every forest wildfire that has burned across Montana forested landscapes during the past 30 years based on how and why it burned, and the damage left behind.

The majority of the fires were contained and controlled when they burned onto private forested lands by the excellent work of our fire crews. This is where the statisticians make their horribly wrong main assumption, believing that wildfire fires are only contained in the wildland urban interface in order to protect homes. Clearly home protection is an important goal. But, the majority of wildfires are contained in the WUI because they can be due to the fuels reduction that private landowners have accomplished, often at their own cost. Plus, private forest lands mostly have easy road access where fire crews and equipment like water tankers and dozers, and fire suppression crews conducting burnouts can be very effective and safe at containing a fire.

So imagine you are a rural forest landowner who has done the work needed to help suppress wildfires, especially if your land borders federal lands where forest fuels reduction work has been hamstrung with endless litigation. Containing wildfires in overgrown dense and dead trees is not possible, especially if you want to keep fire fighters alive. Thus, you contain fires where fuel breaks or fuels reduction has occurred. There are many rural landowners whose property was used to contain wildfires regardless of how and why they started without any compensation for the losses brought about by fire containment tactics such as fire-line construction, “burnouts” or backburns. And now an “official” audit comes out indicating that these same private forest property owners should pay for the wildland fire suppression costs that protect all communities, including urban towns and infrastructure across Montana. This is like charging the good Samaritan who stops to help a car crash victim for the cost of the ambulance.

All Montana citizens benefit from wildland fire protection because we all can suffer the consequences, even in well-established towns. If we do not control wildfires in the wildland urban interface, we will lose entire towns like those in California where landowners in the WUI have been prevented from practicing forest density reduction and other vegetation control due to state-mandated over-concern for “native habitat” and no concern for the rural residents that live there.

Kolb holds a doctorate and is a Montana State University Extension Forestry Specialist as well as an associate professor of Forest Ecology and Management.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2025/08/21/how-flawed-studies-can-lead-to-wrong-dangerous-conclusions/

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