The Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) has announced the arrival of a new feature that allows users to compare outputs from up to five weather scenarios side-by-side. The feature allows for new ways to develop prescriptions in burn plans, enhance contingency plans, and create new visuals. There is a tutorial available to explain the new features.

The National Interagency Wildfire Coordinating Group recently released Guidance for Prevention and Management of COVID-19 During Wildland Fire, providing updates and recommendations to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on wildland fire personnel, including changes as a result of vaccination efforts.

Fireline, an excellent new podcast from Montana Public Radio, is a six-part series about wildfire in the West. It tells very personal stories about what fire means and how we as people deal with it. It also provides perspectives on the latest wildfire research and management approaches. Search for it in your favorite podcast app or go here to listen.

This multilingual website helps visualize the impact that women firefighters have across the world. It also provides links to research on gender equity and equality in wildfires.

Congratulations to the 14 projects that were awarded funding under the Montana Forest Action Plan. These projects seek to reduce wildfire risks, improve forest health and wildlife habitat, and support local economies. We look forward to following their implementation.

• Bozeman Municipal Watershed Cross-Boundary Forest Collaboration Project (Bozeman)
• Chalk Buttes Forest Fuels Mitigation (Bozeman)
• Fort Belknap – Bear Gulch Temporary Road (Fort Belknap Indian Reservation)
• Gird Creek Stand Improvement and WUI Project (Hamilton)
• Lone Pine State Park Forest & Grassland Improvement (Kalispell)
• Missouri Headwaters Habitat Restoration and Biomass Utilization Project (Beaverhead County)
• Pines Recreation Area Cross Boundary Project (Valley County)
• Piquette Creek (Bitterroot NF, Ravali County)
• Rabbit Tracks Forest Partnership (Troy)
• Red Lodge Mountain Restoration Project (Red Lodge)
• Sorrel Springs GNA (Frenchtown)
• South Helena – Capital 360 Project (Helena)
• Statewide Urban Reforestation (Statewide)
• Wildfire Adapted Missoula Twin-Gold Creek Project (Missoula County)

Wildland fire potential for the Northern Rockies Geographical Area is expected to be normal for the geographic area through August, with some elevated potential in the eastern sections until green up occurs. Seasonal outlooks from Predictive Services and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center for May through August project a trend toward warmer and drier conditions across the geographic area for late spring and summer “core” fire season months. One of the most significant factors in these outlooks is the current transition from La Niña to ENSO neutral that is currently underway. Considering the time of year that this is occurring, what is known as the “spring predictability barrier” by climatologists, introduces more uncertainty than usual to this season outlook.

According to the latest US Drought Monitor, nearly all of North Dakota and eastern Montana are in the “Severe to Extreme Drought” categories and this condition is anticipated to persist through July according to NOAA’s Seasonal Drought Outlook from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC). Although several weak weather systems during the last half of April brought light precipitation to help mitigate some of the dryness. West of the Continental Divide it is abnormally dry but not extreme in the northern Idaho Panhandle and northwest Montana. The only parts of the Northern Rockies Geographic Area that are not highlighted on the drought monitor map are from central Idaho/Bitterroot Divide through the Missoula/Bitterroot Valleys of western Montana where timely and frequent storm systems have continued to provide adequate precipitation and cool enough weather in the mountains to preserve the moisture within the mid-elevation snowpack.

This year is anticipated to be normal regarding the timing of snow melt-off in the mid-elevations before the early summer flush from the highest mountains ensues. The snow water equivalent within the high elevation spring snowpack is still running between 85 to 100 percent of average and mid-to-lower elevations are ripening/flushing out with near-normal streamflows.

During the last part of April and into early May the synoptic weather pattern is anticipated to change. It has been persistent for the past month with cool, but relatively dry northwest flow. A more progressive, westerly flow with embedded Pacific troughs is anticipated to focus most precipitation in the western PSAs of the Northern Rockies. In contrast, the eastern PSAs from central Montana through North Dakota have received some limited precipitation inputs and are expected to see additional benefits in late April and early May from somewhat less critical fire potential compared to March and early April. They may continue to see some elevated fire potential into May during warm/dry/windy episodes between weather systems due to a delayed onset of green up because of the underlying drought conditions and
abnormally dry soil/fuel moistures but overall the expectation is that it will be closer to normal fire potential as green up occurs. Once green up develops and fuels are growing in early summer, the expectation of a warmer and drier than normal period may be offset somewhat by an average monsoon pattern beginning in July.

For more detail, check out this web briefing.

--Adapted from May 1st report by Predictive Services, National Interagency Fire Center.