Community preparedness — Montana
Wildfire, blizzards, flooding, drought, and earthquakes across 56 counties of spectacular terrain. MSU Extension in every county. Ham operators who keep communities connected when the highway closes. CERT teams from Billings to Kalispell. Here's where to find your network.
Enter your ZIP to find volunteer groups, training programs, civic organizations, and mutual aid networks in your area.
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Community calendar
CERT trainings, canning workshops, ham radio exams, garden workdays, first aid classes. Events from local organizations that build community resilience.
56
County extension offices
4
NWS forecast offices
15+
Amateur radio clubs
2
Red Cross chapters
Where to plug in
Montana is the fourth-largest state in the country but 44th in population. The Missoula Valley faces wildfire smoke and flooding. Eastern Montana deals with blizzards, drought, and grassland fire. The mountain passes close in winter. And across the entire state, every community operates with the knowledge that professional help is often hours away. The organizations below are how Montana bridges that gap.
Montana State University Extension operates offices in all 56 Montana counties. Programming spans range and livestock management (Montana is one of the top cattle-producing states), crop production, horticulture, food safety, financial literacy, 4-H youth development, and community development. Montana's agricultural identity is inseparable from the extension system.
The Master Gardener program trains volunteers for Montana's challenging short-season climate (Zones 3–6). Extension runs food preservation workshops (wild game processing, canning, dehydrating), Firewise workshops in the wildland-urban interface, and range management education. In eastern Montana, the county extension agent may be the primary professional resource for an area the size of a small state.
Montana Disaster and Emergency Services (DES), under the Military Affairs Department, coordinates the state's all-hazards emergency program through county emergency management coordinators. Montana's EM system is built around wildfire (the state's most frequent and destructive hazard), blizzards, flooding, drought, and earthquake risk along the Rocky Mountain front.
CERT programs are active in Montana's larger counties. Yellowstone County (Billings), Cascade County (Great Falls), Missoula County, Lewis and Clark County (Helena), Gallatin County (Bozeman), and Flathead County (Kalispell) run programs. In rural Montana, CERT volunteers are often the only organized emergency response for miles during wildfire evacuations. Training is free.
The American Red Cross Montana and Wyoming Region serves the entire state through chapters in Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, and Helena. First aid, CPR, AED, wilderness first aid, and water safety classes are offered year-round. In a state with vast backcountry and limited emergency services, wilderness first aid has particular value.
During wildfire seasons, Red Cross opens evacuation shelters across affected counties — sometimes operating multiple shelters simultaneously across hundreds of miles. Montana Red Cross volunteers are experienced with wildfire-specific shelter operations, including air quality protocols for smoke evacuees. Volunteer entry points include shelter operations, disaster assessment, and home fire response.
Montana has over 15 amateur radio clubs in the ARRL Montana Section, part of the Northwestern Division. In a state where mountain ranges block cell signals and cell infrastructure simply doesn't exist across vast stretches of eastern Montana, ham radio is an essential survival tool. ARES teams provide emergency communications during wildfire evacuations, blizzards, and flood events when commercial systems fail.
Getting licensed costs $15 for the exam and about $35 for a basic handheld radio. Study at hamstudy.org, then find an exam session. Clubs in Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, Helena, Bozeman, and Kalispell host exams regularly.
Four NWS offices serve Montana: Great Falls (north-central MT), Missoula (western MT), Glasgow (northeastern MT and the Hi-Line), and Billings (south-central and southeastern MT). Each runs SKYWARN spotter training before severe weather season.
Montana's weather hazards include dry lightning that sparks wildfire across millions of acres of forest and rangeland, blizzards with whiteout conditions and wind chills to minus 60°F, severe thunderstorms with large hail on the eastern plains, flash flooding in mountain valleys, and spring flooding from snowmelt. Trained spotters across Montana's vast terrain fill enormous gaps in weather observation. Training is free.
Montana has over 80 public library locations overseen by the Montana State Library. Billings Public Library, Missoula Public Library, Great Falls Public Library, and the Helena Lewis and Clark Library run community programming. In small Montana towns, the library is often the only public building with reliable internet, making it critical infrastructure during emergencies.
Montana's community college system includes Helena College, Flathead Valley Community College (Kalispell), Miles Community College (Miles City), and Dawson Community College (Glendive). The Montana University System campuses also offer continuing education. Programs cover EMT certification, welding, diesel technology, wildland firefighting, and agricultural trades.
Why this matters
Montana burns. It burns every summer now, and the fires are getting larger. The 2017 fire season was one of the worst in state history — over a million acres burned, dozens of communities evacuated, and smoke so thick that Missoula's air quality registered as hazardous for weeks. The 2021 season was worse. Fires in Ravalli, Mineral, Sanders, Lincoln, and other counties forced thousands of evacuations.
In a state where a county might be the size of Connecticut but have a population of 3,000, community networks are not supplemental to emergency management — they are emergency management. Ranchers with water trucks and dozers become the initial wildfire response. Volunteer fire departments cover areas that professional departments never could. Ham radio operators provide the only communications when cell towers are down and repeaters are in the smoke.
CERT-trained volunteers manage evacuation shelters in school gymnasiums while their neighbors are still on the fire line. Extension agents help ranchers move livestock and connect agricultural producers with disaster resources. Red Cross opens shelters across hundreds of miles of fire-affected terrain.
Montana's preparedness culture is built on the understanding that in a state this large and this lightly populated, you prepare before the fire comes — because when it does, you'll be handling it yourself for the first critical hours. The organizations on this page build that capacity across all 56 counties.
The foundation
Community resilience begins with a household that can take care of itself. Cover the first 72 hours, then extend outward to your street, your neighborhood, your town.
Start with the first 72 hours