Montana legislators will gather in Helena early next month for the year's second special session. Like the first special session last spring, it shouldn't have been necessary.

The Sept. 5 session was called so that lawmakers can authorize spending more money to pay for the state's share of firefighting costs. Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he's asking for $55 million for both this year's effort and the next. He's also seeking to increase the size of the state's emergency-disaster fund permitted by law from $16 million to $25 million, and he wants to eliminate time restrictions on declarations of disaster and emergencies during the fire season.

For years, the state has refrained from appropriating money specifically for wildfire suppression. Instead, it has let the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation spend what it needs to spend on firefighting, shifting the money from other parts of its budget. Later, legislators would make up the difference.

But this year, the early start of the fire season and the many fires needing to be fought has pushed the department too far. It can't wait until the 2009 session and stay afloat.

Last winter the Legislature refused the governor's request to fund firefighting in advance, and that's why another special session is needed. We hope that legislators don't make that mistake again.

Back in 1988, when much of Yellowstone National Park burned and a huge fire erupted in the Elkhorns while the Canyon Creek blaze spread to some 250,000 acres, the magnitude of the wildfire season was seen an anomaly. Nobody expected years like that to become the norm.

In the past seven years or so, we've learned differently. Unless forest fuels are soaked by summertime rains, significant fire seasons have become something to be expected in Montana. And if scientific projections of continued warming prove true, even more such years can be expected.

Money put aside for firefighting doesn't have to be spent in a wet year. But it no longer makes sense to pretend a dry year isn't likely to happen.