Burn Bans

Montana issues fire restrictions per land-management unit (county, national forest, BLM district, FWP site) — there is no single statewide Stage, and the Stage can differ between landowner classes inside the same county. Restrictions have kept easing: Montana DNRC's official Active Fire Restrictions layer, re-read September 30, 2026 (units edited as recently as September 29, 2026), shows NO unit at Stage 2, 17 units at STAGE 1 (down from 29 on September 29, 2026 and 57 on September 18, 2026), 511 units carrying no restrictions or closures and 3 units with no restriction recorded. Every Stage 1 unit now sits in 1 of 6 counties inside 3 DNRC areas (Dillon, Lewistown and Miles City); BIG HORN COUNTY NO LONGER CARRIES ANY STAGE 1 UNIT. The 17 Stage 1 units are: CARTER COUNTY — BLM (Miles City Field Office), Custer Gallatin National Forest, state forest and state non-forest land, private forest and private non-forest land, and Montana FWP sites; RICHLAND COUNTY — state and private non-forest land and Montana FWP sites; BEAVERHEAD COUNTY — Bureau of Reclamation land and Montana FWP sites; HILL COUNTY — Bureau of Reclamation land and Montana FWP sites; PHILLIPS COUNTY — Bureau of Reclamation land and Montana FWP sites; and MADISON COUNTY — Montana FWP sites only. Confirm the exact unit and ownership, not just the county. Under Stage 1: no building, maintaining or using a campfire except in an agency-provided ring at a developed recreation site, and no smoking except inside a vehicle or building, at a developed site, or while stopped in a cleared area at least 3 feet across; devices fueled solely by LPG/propane with a shut-off valve are allowed. Federal units set their own orders: the Lolo National Forest rescinded its Stage 2 fire restrictions effective September 2, 2026 (forest news release of September 1, 2026). Year-round wildland baseline: no fireworks, no exploding or binary targets, no tracer or steel-core ammunition, and internal-combustion engines need a working spark arrestor. Restrictions are set unit by unit and are changing daily as the season winds down — confirm your exact county and land unit on the DNRC fire restrictions map before any open flame.