Missoula, Mont. — Missoula County is joining others in moving to stage two fire restrictions as fire crews work to limit new fire starts.

The county already had a general outdoor burn ban and limits on smoking in place. The new rules add limits on welding and using gas generators outdoors in uncleared spaces. They also ban fireworks and other explosives. Those restrictions are in effect from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. All offroad driving is prohibited.

Philip Keating, an assistant chief with the Missoula Fire Department, said the goal is to reduce the load on firefighters.

“All we can do is our part to try and restrict human-caused of fires. That's why the restrictions are so important right now," he said. "We're so busy with all of the lightning caused fires that we can't continue to have human-caused fires and keep up with those,”

Keating explained that officials use moisture measurements in possible fire fuels and weather forecasts for wind and heat to guide the changes.

He said regional and national resource availability also factored into the decision, pointing to the fires in Spokane as an example of a large incident that could reduce the help available if a major fire broke out in Missoula.

“Nationally we're to preparedness level five, which means that resources are hard to get," Keating said. "In this region we're at a level of four, which means we'll have a hard time getting any resources if we had a big incident.”