HELENA - The Martz administration has abandoned its effort to come up with a new way to pay for fighting wildfires, after a committee studying the issue was unable to agree on who should pay more.

The panel spent the past few months discussing possible solutions that included special taxes on owners of developed timber land in high-risk areas outside cities, the insurance and lodging industries, utilities, railroads and recreation businesses.

"People agreed that fire expenses have been pretty incredible the last few years and we ought to look at a new way of funding them, but no one wanted an assessment that would affect them," Bud Clinch, director for the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, said Tuesday.

As a result, his agency will not submit a proposal to the 2005 Legislature, he said. "We found enough resistance early on that I didn't see the likelihood of succeeding."

The current funding system gets money from the state treasury, federal aid and a tax on owners of undeveloped land within state fire protection districts. The tax produces only about $2 million a year.

The committee, organized by the department following the 2003 fire season that left the state with a nearly $32 million bill, talked about imposing taxes on landowners who live in places where they benefit most from firefighting efforts. Those areas, dubbed the "urban interface," are usually subdivisions tucked into forested land around larger cities in the state.

The panel came up with four options, all of which would continue to lean heavily on the state treasury for much of the cost of fighting fires.

Two alternatives - one worth $20 million a year and the other $14 million annually - would have added taxes on certain landowners and assorted industries.

Another proposal would have continued the current funding system with an unspecified increase the existing tax on undeveloped land.

The fourth plan, producing $20 million a year, called for diverting money from an existing tax on insurance companies.

Clinch said he was disappointed but not surprised the committee could not reach agreement.

"I was aware of the resistance, but hopeful that after a couple of fairly intense fire seasons back to back, we could get beyond that," he said.

Rep. Christine Kaufmann, a Helena Democrat and member of the committee, said the Martz administration should have gone ahead with a proposal to the Legislature anyway.

"This is a tremendous opportunity to say that some people in Montana need to step up to the plate," she said. "The fact that there are houses built in the interface increases the costs of fighting fires. They (owners) bear a disproportionate responsibility for those increased costs."

While Kaufmann wants the issue addressed by the next Legislature, Rep. Dick Haines, R-Missoula, prefers to wait until the 2007 session.

Haines, who is also a committee member, said more time is needed to gather the information that can persuade lawmakers to act.

He said he agreed with the department's decision. "I don't think we were going to get anything put together that would have the consensus necessary to get something passed in the (next) Legislature."