Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Monday called lawmakers into a special session of the Montana Legislature to set aside $55 million to combat the wildfires that have already charred more than 400,000 acres this summer.

Schweitzer scheduled the session to begin on Sept. 5 and said at an early afternoon press conference he thought lawmakers could probably get their work done in a single day.

So far, Montana's share of the state firefighting bill is around $35 million. That's $19 million more than all the money set aside to pay for disasters for the next two years.

The state has more than enough money to pay for firefighting. Lawmakers left about $180 million unspent in a kind of state savings account at the end of the last Legislature. Schweitzer said he wants to transfer money "from the savings account to the checking account."

However, only the Legislature has the power to transfer money from account to account.

As is the norm, lawmakers didn't set aside any money for wildland firefighting when they wrote the state budget earlier this year. Typically, Montana spends money from the governor's emergency account to cover firefighting.

Additionally, the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, which oversees firefighting, shifts money from elsewhere in its budget to pay the bill. The agency then asks lawmakers at a regularly-scheduled legislative session to pay back those accounts and puts off paying other bills until it gets that money.

But this year, said Mary Sexton, DNRC director, the firefighting bill is too high and the next legislature isn't scheduled to meet again until January 2009. Sexton she estimated her agency could probably come up with another $8 million by shifting money around.

"We can't go any higher than that without really devastating our operating budget," she said.

But even if the agency spent every dollar of the governor's $16 million emergency fund and all the $8 million it could find in its own budget, that still left $11 million of the state's firefighting bill unpaid and the fire season isn't yet over.

To that end, Schweitzer decided to call a special session. He's asking lawmakers to consider setting aside $55 million for firefighting and other disasters. The money would be for both this year and next summer's fire season and would be in addition to the $16 million already set aside in the governor's emergency account.

Schweitzer said he'd like to see a larger emergency and firefighting fund so the state can pay its firefighting bills as they come in, not after the fact.

Lawmakers don't have to follow the governor's recommendations.

Senate President Mike Cooney, a Helena Democrat who was at Monday's announcement, said it's hard to say what lawmakers might do with the governor's idea.

"I think the governor's request is not out of the question," he said, adding that the $16 million set aside for all disasters over the next two years was clearly not enough. Cooney said he'd like to allocate more money for firefighting, with the hopes that the state doesn't need to spend the money, but with the security that the money would be there if Montana needed it.

House Speaker Scott Sales, a Bozeman Republican, said he thought the special session was "premature" and wondered why the governor didn't talk to him and other lawmakers before making the announcement.

"Fire season isn't over yet," he said. "It's still hot and dry."

Said Sales: "Every other administration for the past 100 years has been able to pay for fires with (after-the-fact extra money) and moving money around. Every other governor I know of has been able to handle these types of situations nicely without having to have a special session."

But Sexton said fire seasons have changed a lot, especially in the last seven years. In the 1990s, forest fires burned an average of 150,000 acres a year in Montana and cost the state an average of $3.5 million. Since 2000, fires have been burning an average of 700,000 acres a year in Montana and costing the state an average of $23 million. That's too much for the state to just absorb as it has in years past, she said.

"There's been a drastic change," she said. Also, in 2000, the federal government paid the entire $55 million state firefighting bill. Two years later, Montana again used $35 million in federal money to pay for firefighting. This year, Sexton said, there is no federal buyout on the horizon.

Schweitzer also is asking lawmakers to consider changing the state's emergency declaration law. Right now, the governor may declare an emergency for 20 days and be extended for another 20 days. Emergency declarations are necessary to access the governor's emergency fund and tap into other state disaster aid, including the National Guard.

Schweitzer is asking lawmakers to exempt forest fire emergencies from the time limit, as well as the 30-day limit on official disaster declarations.

Both Cooney and Sales said they hoped the session wouldn't last longer than a day.

Schweitzer said at the announcement that he didn't think there would be a lot of "political wrangling" around the session, but already some seems to have started.

Schweitzer didn't mention it Monday, but his administration has twice tried to increase money set aside for firefighting and lawmakers have twice turned down his ideas, including at the 2007 Legislature. Sales said Republicans tried to put an extra $10 million into firefighting, but Democrats removed it.