VIDEO: Tucked beneath snow-capped mountains in Montana, the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory is unlike any other lab in the country. It’s where scientists are starting fires to better understand how they burn — and how to manage them. The U.S. Forest Service built the fire sciences lab in 1960, inspired by a forest fire that killed 13 firefighters.
The facility includes a 66-foot-high combustion chamber that allows for intense burn tests in controlled conditions. Today, about 80 employees are carrying on that mission of wildfire research, and keep coming back to one controlling principle. “We’re definitely part of the problem,” said fire scientist and lab leader Mark Finney.
Finney believes we still don’t implement some of the basics that could limit the flames, like clearing away dead and dry vegetation with more prescribed burns — including near urban areas. In his view, some smaller wildland fires should also be left to burn to eliminate fuels that would feed larger fires.
