Jon Tester

Sen. Jon Tester has asked the U.S. Forest Service to remove limitations on which fire-science experts can travel to an international conference after reports last week that many Missoula-based personnel weren’t allowed to attend. The Forest Service is sending fewer than a third of the fire experts it sent two years ago to the same conference. Organizers of the International Fire Ecology and Management Congress told the Missoulian they were expecting 44 people from the Rocky Mountain Research Station this year, but were only getting six. In a letter to Forest Service Chief Tony Tooke sent on Monday, Tester said it was “in the best interest of Montanans that these public servants are permitted to share their knowledge with other wildfire experts from across the country and around the world.”