Metereologist predicts severity of wildfire season

Talk about it

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — An official with the Northern Rockies Coordination Center says forecasters for now are expecting a normal wildfire season.

Meteorologist Bryan Henry said that there is still uncertainty in predicting the 2012 fire season. But as of now, officials are leaning toward a normal fire season of between 200,000 and 250,000 acres burned in northern Idaho, Montana, Yellowstone National Park and North Dakota.

The uncertainty comes from this year's weak La Nina weather pattern. The pattern was expected to produce more snow than it did this winter.

Henry says he will issue his first official preliminary fire season outlook for this year on April 1. He says he doesn't expect it to change too much between now and then.

Tags: montana, news, updates, ff, firefighters