Building Fire Resiliency through Prescribed Burning

SEELEY LAKE – If the way the nation takes care of its forest is likened to health care what would it look like? Fire Scientist Mark Finney made the comparison. He feels that the way fire is treated on the landscape would be equivalent to removing all doctors except those for emergency care including emergency rooms, paramedics and ambulance services.

"Those would be absolutely necessary for health care and those would save lives," said Finney during a presentation to the Missoula County Commissioners Feb. 8. "But the general state of health in the population would be terrible. All of us would...