Montana’s National Forests are among the most celebrated public lands in the United States, offering unmatched wildlife habitat, clean water, recreation, and scenic beauty. They also face some of the most severe wildfire threats. These threats are worsened, not reduced by current restrictions under the Clinton-era 2001 Roadless Rule.
Approximately 6.4 million acres of National Forest Service lands in Montana are designated as Inventoried Roadless Areas, representing more than a third of the Forest Service’s total lands in the state. While some Roadless Rule areas technically permit some management, its restrictions significantly complicate efforts to reduce wildfire risk. As a result, projects commonly face delays or legal derailment.
At present, an estimated 300 to 370 million board feet of Montana timber are tied up in litigation. This is enough to build around 18,000 to 23,000 average-size homes, enough housing to support entire communities. Yet that timber remains locked in limbo instead of contributing to forest resilience, local economies, or community protection.
In a recent Flathead Beacon opinion, Sarah McMillan argued that roadless areas are “recovering” and less prone to stand-replacing fires. However, the very research she cited suggests that when fires do start in roadless areas, they often burn more extensively than in roaded areas. Over the last three decades, an area equivalent to one-third of all roadless acres has burned nationally, compared to less than one-fifth of roaded acres.
Further, the Forest Service estimates that nearly half of all roadless acres nationwide are rated as high or very high wildfire risk. About 24.5 million acres of these lands are within the Wildland-Urban Interface, where wildfires can most directly threaten homes, infrastructure, and public safety. In Montana, more than half of all National Forest System lands are reserved from routine active management, limiting the use of science-based treatments like thinning, prescribed burning, and selective harvesting.
Even old-growth stands are not immune to decline. In Eastern Oregon’s Malheur National Forest, a recent analysis found that one-quarter of trees more than 300 years old in randomly located roadless sites died between 2012 and 2023, driven by a combination of drought, insect infestations, and competition from younger trees. Researchers concluded that in dry forests, active management is needed to protect these irreplaceable giants.
Opponents of rescinding the Roadless Rule warn additional roads would lead to more human-caused fire ignitions. But many Forest Service roads are often closed by gates, barriers, or seasonal restrictions. The real value of road access is speed: enabling firefighters to reach ignition points early, build containment lines, and protect both natural resources and communities. The 2025 Observation Point Fire in Montana demonstrated the value of prior fuels work and access. Crews were able to quickly suppress a fire that could have caused far greater damage.
There is also a persistent claim that rescinding the Roadless Rule would trigger “unrestrained logging.” That is simply not the case. All projects on federal lands, including those in former roadless areas, remain subject to strict environmental laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and forest-specific management plans.
That is why rescinding the Roadless Rule does not mandate road building or widespread logging. It would restore flexibility to land managers, allowing them to consider roads and other tools where they are needed for forest restoration, wildfire mitigation, water system maintenance, recreation access, and emergency response. It would replace a rigid, one-size-fits-all prohibition with site-specific decision-making based on local conditions and science.
Montana’s forests are too valuable to leave vulnerable to catastrophic fire because of outdated policy. Nearly a quarter century after the adoption of the Roadless Rule, the consequences of restricted access are clear: more acres burning, more severe wildfires, more carbon emissions from the smoke and fewer opportunities for proactive management.
Healthy, resilient forests require active stewardship. Rescinding the Roadless Rule would allow land managers to better protect wildlife habitat, clean water, and local communities from the growing threat of high-severity wildfire, while still upholding existing forest plans as well as the rigorous environmental protections that govern all federal forest management.