Wyoming and Montana Say Fire Season Below Normal

"We had quite a bit of activity as far as initial attack goes, but for the most part everything was kept small," Wyoming State Forester Bill Crapser said.

"With the exception of one fire late in the season northeast of Billings, we had a substantially less than normal year," Montana State Forester Bob Harrington said.

Crapser said Wyoming has averaged about 750 fires a year over the last 18 years.

"It looks like this year we're going to be down around 500 fires," he said.

Not counting fires on federal land, the state normally records about 100,000 burned acres a year, or about 156 square miles, Crapser said.

"And we're going to be way down in about the 20,000, if that, level this year for nonfederal fires," he said, noting that some counties don't report their fire statistics until the winter.

The three biggest fires in Wyoming were all on federal land, burning about 93,000 acres. In all three fires, fire managers let parts of them burn unhindered because it benefited forest health.

Harrington said there were about 1,600 fires that burned 283,000 acres, or about 442 square miles, in Montana.

The 10-year average for Montana is about 1,800 fires and 411,000 acres burned, he said.

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