The county continues to act as a poster community for how to exist under extreme wildfire conditions. Data show 99% of the Bitterroot Valley is at high risk of wildfire exposure, and amid climbing insurance rates, preventative paradoxes and an upcoming fire season slated to be significant, residents are relying on adaptation to protect their homes.
The USDA Forest Service's Wildfire Risks to Communities resource shows Ravalli County has a higher wildfire risk than the vast majority of counties in the United States, with "risk" being defined as "the relative consequence of wildfire to residential structures everywhere on the landscape, whether a home actually exists there or not." And over the next 30 years, the climate data group Fire Street estimates at least 34,000 residential homes within Ravalli County will be at some risk of wildfire, with many of those being at "severe" risk.
Ravalli County also ranks high compared to most of the state when it comes to the number of new homes built in high-hazard zones. A 2020 report from Headwaters Economics looked at home building trends in wildfire hazard areas from 1990 to 2016, focusing on 25 counties in the western half of the state where wildfire data was most consistent.
During that nearly three decade stretch, Ravalli County built roughly 7,000 single family homes in high risk wildfire zones, the most out of any county studied. Missoula built the second most single family homes in similarly risky zones at 2,234.
Bitterroot National Forest District Ranger Steve Brown said that Ravalli County’s exceptionally close proximity to wildfire “drives everything” related to firefighting in the valley.
“We’re on pins and needles all summer long,” Brown said. “So much of the forest is at a close proximity to private lands and structures. Unless it’s a fire that starts way back in the wilderness or something, it’s one of those things where pretty quick it’s gonna be in an area where it could be impacting private land.”
Brown said that Bitterroot Valley Ranger Districts have to prioritize attack efforts in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), which are areas in the county at risk of wildfire damage. An enormous percentage of the county’s uniquely fire susceptible topography is classified as WUI.
“It’s steep country,” Brown said. “If you think about fighting fire on those steep slopes, it does not make the job easier. That combined with the precip we get annually. We can grow trees pretty well and in the absence of managing that, that just builds up and creates a higher risk for everybody.”
A 2024 Ravalli County Community Wildfire Protection Plan provides context for Ravalli County’s definition of its WUI areas. It states, “Ravalli County has defined its WUI to be reflective of areas that are at risk for wildfire and areas that would be heavily impacted in the event of a wildfire…given the majority of Ravalli County is situated within a rural setting, a lower population density threshold is justified to ensure that the definition of the WUI serves all county residents and first responders.”
A separate Headwaters Economics report found that wildland areas like these are seeing explosive growth nationwide, not just in Montana.
“The WUI is the fastest-growing land use type in the country and accounts for a third of all homes, growing by 145% between 1992 to 2015," reads the report. "With more structures and people living in the WUI, wildfire risks increase.”
Brown said predicting and preventing structure fires in the Bitterroot’s sizable wildland area is a persistent concern for firefighters in the county.
“It’s always weighing heavily on our minds,” Brown said.
WUI Map
According to a study done by DRNC and DJ & A Engineering, all of Ravalli County's municipalities are within the WUI and labeled as "at risk communities."
Headwaters Economics Wildfire Researcher and Policy Analyst Kimiko Barret told the Ravalli Republic that the county was caught in the middle of what fire ecologists call a “wildfire paradox.”
“We have a lot of fuels built up in the wildlands and the forest and this is largely due to successful suppression efforts over a 100 years plus,” Barret said. “That’s terrific in terms of home protection, but the downside to that is that you’re excluding fire from the landscape and in doing so we generated what is called the wildfire paradox; in that by suppressing a fire today by containing and extinguishing, you are effectively punting that risk down the road.”
Natural fire phenomenon, which has grown increasingly intense due to climate change, has been effectively suppressed in environments like Ravalli County. While this protects communities and property in the short term, smaller scale wildfires are an essential aspect of Montana forests and in their absence, fire fuels are propagated and pose a higher risk for future seasons.
“That fire isn’t allowed to come through the forest and do its job of ecological rejuvenation, clean up the understory and get rid of those latter fuels and what a fire is ecologically meant to do, particularly in a lot of the landscapes in Montana that are fire adapted,” Barret said.
Ravalli County’s wildfire paradox is a perfect concoction of key contributing factors; homes expanding outwards into WUI's (and in Ravalli County’s case, particularly risky WUI’s) and continuously intensified fires caught in a cycle of constant suppression and changing climate.
Barret said that one of the best methods of combatting wildfire destruction at such a critical stage is implementing home mitigation measures within communities.
“If what we are defining as the wildfire crisis is homes burning, then homes must intentionally be part of the solution,” Barret said. “That means thinking very thoughtfully and strategically about under what conditions homes are built in high risk locations.”
Adaptation and Mitigation
Ella Langer, co-chair of the wildfire preparedness hub Fire in the Root, told the Ravalli Republic that residents of the county needed to not only be prepared for wildfire but also be able to adapt to the challenges of living in a region with such high fire risk.
“As long as we have forests, we’re going to have fire,” Langer said. “As we continue to grow and build we’re going to live alongside wildfire and be resilient to it because at the end of the day, changing how we’re living instead of changing the landscapes is gonna give us a lot more longevity and cost us a lot less in the long run.”
An article from the USDA claims that studies on home mitigation and fire preparedness found "a cost–benefit ratio as high as $5 saved for every $1 spent on fuels treatments."
Langer said that because of the Bitterroot Valley’s exceptionally high wildfire risk for homeowners, a lot of the information Fire in the Root provides is especially relevant for the entire population.
“A lot of what we talk about is extremely relevant because we have the highest risk of wildfire to homes in Ravalli County than any other county in Montana,” Langer said. “We have really extreme topography, we have interesting wind patterns, we have heavy smoke deposition and we have an incredibly robust elderly population.”
Langer said that fire safety and preparedness was critical to the valley’s elderly population, explaining that seniors were three times more endangered by forest fire than the general population.
“Elderly folks are about three times more likely to die in a structure fire than the general population,” Langer said. “We have a lot of vulnerable people that if these big wildfire events do happen, even if it’s once every ten years, that’s scary and we want to prepare folks for that to happen.”
Statistics from Wildfire Risks to Communities reports that Ravalli County has a “medium” vulnerable population rating, stating that 26.5% of Ravalli County is elderly - meaning 65 years of age or older - and 18.4% of the population have disabilities.
Vulnerable populations: Ravalli County
In addition to the possible mobility issues that could increase vulnerable populations’ risk from wildfire, side effects like air pollution also adversely impact elderly and disabled individuals.
“People over age 65 and people who are disabled are more susceptible to air pollution and particulates associated with wildfire smoke,” reports Wildfire Risk to Communities.
Fire in the Root strives to teach valley residents tactics for adapting their homes to be more fire resistant, Langer saying that even homes in “the middle of a very dense forest” could lower their risk.
“The first and most important is the home ignition zone,” Langer said. “You can live in the middle of a very dense forest, but as long as you maintain that 100 feet surrounding your house and the house itself, you can greatly increase the survivability of your home.”
The home ignition zone concept was conceived by former U.S. Forest Service Researcher Jack Cohen, who after a career of studying fire prevention concluded that the 100 feet surrounding a property could pose the greatest threat to the structure’s chance at survival.
Fire in the Root uses this concept to educate Bitterroot homeowners on various steps and procedures they can take to decrease a property’s immediate risk of wildfire damage, like clearing out gutters, removing any yard combustibles, installing metal mesh screening on vents and spacing trees with regard to old canopy growth.
Some organizations offer grants to homeowners to incentivize mitigation practices. For example, Montana's Disaster and Emergency Services will offer post-fire grant money to states if a wildfire is approved for a Fire Management Assistance Grant from FEMA. With FEMA funding currently being reallocated by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, it's unclear how federal grant fueled mitigation efforts could be effected going forward.
In addition to making communities safer, fire mitigation could potentially lower homeowners' insurance rates, which has risen over 40% in recent years.
Climate change's impact on insurance
“We’re talking about people losing their insurance because of fire dangers,” Fire in the Root Co Chair Judy Anderson told the Ravalli Republic, explaining that people frequently came to the non-profit with questions on how to lower their insurance rates. “We do free home assessments where we go out at somebody’s invitation and we walk around the outside of their home and point out vulnerabilities they might not be aware of and things they can do to help their homes defend themselves.”
An article written by Headwaters Economics reported that, “Home insurance rates rose by an average of 13% from 2020 to 2023 across the United States due to a variety of factors including state regulations and the costs of climate-driven disasters that are now occurring at a scale large enough to have a direct impact on the overall risk transfer market.”
A majority of home insurers utilize fire rating systems to analyze risk associated with insuring a specific property. The higher the fire rating, the higher the insurance cost and in some cases, insurers will refuse to provide coverage if the ratings are bad enough.
Anderson said that a large percentage of questions the Fire in the Root received at their monthly meetings were related to how mitigation and preventative measures could potentially lower insurance rates. Anderson said the the organization did not know how to answer the question of curbing increased insurance costs.
“Those decisions are not made locally, so it’s hard for local people to talk about that,” Anderson said. “It’s a question we’ve had for a few years, certainly after those major fires where whole communities burned down in California.”
Although Montana insurance rates have dramatically risen within the last five years, the data isn't transparent. So much so, that on May 5 of this year, Montana Legislature adopted House Joint Resolution 61 to launch a comprehensive study of the state's rapidly increasing rates.
The resolution states that, "The resolution stems from significant concerns about rapidly increasing insurance rates, with Montana experiencing the fifth-fastest rate increase nationally in 2024 and a cumulative 44.3% increase from 2019 to 2024...The resolution highlights several underlying issues driving the need for this study, such as Montana's high wildfire risk (being the second-highest in the nation), increasing home values, insurers' financial losses, and the disproportionate impact on minority populations and homeowners in high-risk areas."
As of now, up-to-date data related to Montana insurance cost spikes and client drops are not readily available. In a letter of support for the resolution, the Consumer Federation of America said that there was "relatively little data available" about Montana's rising insurance.
"Despite this crisis, there is relatively little data available about Montana’s homeowners insurance market," reads the letter. "The insurance industry makes very little data available; the data that is available is aggregated at the state level, captures only a few elements, and is years out of date by the time it is released."
Bitterroot's history on battling big blazes
The Bitterroot Valley has an extensive history of extraordinarily destructive burns; the collection of wildfires that occurred in 2000 burned 307,000 acres of the Bitterroot National Forest as well as 49,000 acres of Ravalli County private and state lands.
Last summer's windstorms were a recent example of unnatural weather that could have been even more destructive if winds had successfully swept up brush fires in the valley. Increasingly unwieldly weather is something, Brown and other Ravalli County firefighters have to try their best to account for as the begin preparation for the season.
Brown said a lot of firefighters’ prevention preparation depends on available climate data and what it reveals about the coming fire season.
“A lot of it comes down to climate data,” Brown said. “Right now they’re saying that June will be warmer and dryer than normal.”
Outlook data from the National Weather Service shows likelihood of above average heat in June and July, predicting high temperatures and low chances of rain.
Meteorologist warns of 'significant' Montana wildfire season; officials say they're ready
A meteorologist specifically compared current drought conditions and national and global forecasts to what meteorologists were seeing this time in Montana in 2006, 2017 and 2021.
On June 2, Predictive Services Meteorologist for the regional coordination center of the National Interagency Fire Center Dan Borsum briefed Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte as well as numerous wildland fire representatives on the upcoming season and comparing current climate data to that of the summer of 2021.
Borsum warned that forecasts outline a significant fire season for the state, saying, "The stage looks to be set for it to be more challenging this year."
Data points to Montana's recent set of exceptionally dry summers to explain current risk levels. Borsum's briefing reported that over the last three years, Ravalli County had lost 8 to 16 inches of moisture.
Brown said the rain is usually an important indicator of how the season will go.
“It’s the rain that we get in June that makes the biggest difference,” Brown said. “It all comes down to the weather and if we get the storms and it’s dry then we’ll get fires. And we’ll deal with them like we always have.”
What should you do before a wildfire starts?
Redcross.org has these preparation tips to help keep you and your family safe in the event of a wildfire.
© 2025 Missoulian, Mont. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
