> It’s not a question of if the dense forests south of Bozeman, Montana, will burn, but when. After multiple studies warned that ash and sediment from a fire could knock out the booming mountain city’s water-treatment facility, local officials worked with the U.S. Forest Service to craft a plan that would thin trees and conduct prescribed burns to protect the watershed from a catastrophic fire. “The Forest Service and the city feel it is responsible management to begin these preventative reduction actions now,” officials said at the time. > That was 16 years ago. This summer, after regulatory delays and litigation from environmental groups, the project finally got underway. It couldn’t happen soon enough. As wildfires have raged across the western United States this year, forest-restoration projects like this are proving critical to reducing the risk of devastating wildfires—that is, as long as red tape and litigation don’t keep such projects from getting off the ground.