Last night's lightning storms have firefighters around Helena, Missoula and Hamilton chasing reports of smoke and new fires in area forests.
Eight new fire starts were reported north of Helena today, while evacuation orders were lifted for the North Hills fire, the largest fire burning in the area.
Lightning near the south end of the Bitterroot National Forest last night has sparked a one-tenth acre fire west of Hamilton in the Canyon Creek drainage next to Blodgett Canyon.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have submitted a proposal to use a Missoula County radio facility for federal operations.
Officials have confirmed that the child's body found in a remote area part of Northwestern Montana was the missing boy from Oregon, and that he had been shot in the head.
A convicted sex offender is the first person to be charged with rape under a Montana Department of Justice initiative to analyze about 1,200 previously untested sexual assault evidence kits that were being held by law enforcement agencies.
Senators from California and Montana said Thursday that they plan to introduce a bipartisan bill that aims to protect communities from wildfires like the one that killed 85 people and destroyed much of the Northern California town of Paradise last year.
The state of Washington has announced plans to kill another member of a pack of wolves that is repeatedly preying on cattle in Ferry County.
