Environment & Science

This has been the most expensive fire season in Montana since at least 1999. Both the state and federal governments have spent a combined $378 million dollars so far battling blazes.

Montana’s first-ever climate assessment says this past summer may be a vision of the state’s future due to climate change. 

“Montana is going to get warmer and the warming is going to be greater than in a lot of parts of the United States and the world,” says Cathy Whitlock, the report's lead author. The climate assessment was released today.

Yellowstone National Park biologists have euthanized a grizzly bear with a history of exhibiting bold behavior toward humans.

Even after being captured, tagged and relocated to the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in 2015, Yellowstone Public Information Officer Jason Schafer says the bear was undeterred.

In central Montana, drones are dropping peanut butter pellets on prairie dog colonies. It’s part of of an effort by biologists at the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge to save North America’s most endangered mammal.

Keeping Montanans up to date on all the fires burning in the state is a challenge in this unprecedented fire season.  

The Bureau of Land Management office for Montana and the Dakotas has been meeting that challenge since September 1, 2017 using social media.

This was the second driest summer on record in Montana, but meteorologists say rain is finally on the way. 

Since July, the state has seen towns threatened by wildfires and choked with smoke, crops getting killed by drought and grass fires destroying rangeland. 

But a cold and rainy system entering Montana Thursday could put at least a temporary end to the suffering.