Wyatt Frampton summarizes Montana’s 2024 summer wildfire season as long, intense and tragic; a reference to the death of pilot Juliana Turchetti. The 45-year-old pilot was killed July 10th when her single engine water scooper crashed into a mountainside while fighting the Horse Gulch Fire near Helena.
“So, it’s a stark reminder of some of the dangers in this business,” Frampton says.
Frampton oversees the statewide fire response for the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
“We had 2,345 reported wildland fires which burned 387,000 acres across the state. If we looked at a 10 year average, statistically we were about right in average territory for number of fires and acres burned,” he says.
Twenty five percent of those fires were confirmed as natural or lightning caused. The rest were either human caused or undetermined in origin. He credits fast, safe and aggressive initial attack for knocking down most fires before they could become major incidents.
The state is responsible for fire suppression costs for fires DNRC or its county partners are involved in. This year’s tab as of November 15th totaled just over $38-million, about a third more than the 10 year average.
Frampton says some of the summer’s most intense fire activity took place in southeast Montana in August and September.
