The Wildfire-Fighting Union Leader Who Could Change Montana Politics

"He turned and knelt in the cabin, examining the fire through the windows. From here, he could tell how hot it might be, how fast it was ripping through the spindly trees. He scanned the forest for where to land. The crew decided on a spot a quarter mile from the fire with shorter trees that wouldn't hang up the parachutes. It was farther than they would have liked-the crew usually landed right on the edge of the fire-but it would have to do."

"As Forstag maneuvered toward the open door, he focused on the ground far below. He touched each piece of equipment on his parachute system as he mentally recited the familiar four-point checklist of the release mechanism: drogue release, reserve, cutaway, lower reserve static line. Then he stepped into the thin air of the burning morning."

"Though the blaze spanned thirty acres, it wasn't as big as the others that Sam Forstag had seen that benighted the sky with billowing smoke. He, like the five others in the plane, was outfitted in a Kevlar jumpsuit, tall leather boots, a full parachute system, and a helmet. He would soon launch himself into the burning forest below, as he'd done dozens of times, to fight the flames before they reached a small development of houses just three miles away."

"As he hurtled through the sky, he didn't know that this was the fire that would nearly kill him. The one that would add weight to everything to come. On a cold night in early January 2026, Forstag entered a packed bar in downtown Missoula, Montana. The Union Club had long been the gritty workers' pub in town, the de facto Democratic headquarters for both launching campaigns and tracking polls."

A plane flies high above a June 2025 wildfire near Fairbanks, Alaska, with a team of six firefighters preparing to parachute into the burning black spruce forest. Sam Forstag inspects the fire from the cabin, estimates heat and spread, and helps select a landing zone a quarter mile from the flames to avoid parachute entanglement in taller trees. He performs a four-point checklist for his release mechanism before stepping into the air. During the jump, he does not yet know the specific blaze will nearly kill him. Months later, in early January 2026, he enters a packed bar in downtown Missoula, Montana, where political activity and local campaigning are centered.

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