The helitack crew called a dispatch center, which got in touch with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, who sent a warden out to retrieve the two cubs.

Shellenbarger and the team she was with hiked out from the fire line to where their vehicles were parked.

“We sat in the sun and helped dry them off. The one that got hit by water was pretty caked in mud, and he was shivering the whole walk out,” she said.

Bitterroot National Forest spokesman Tod McKay said Montana FWP brought the animals, both males that are just one or two weeks old, to its Montana Wildlife Center in Helena, where the agency rehabilitates orphaned, injured and displaced wildlife. No decisions have been made yet on when or if the cubs can be re-released into the wild.

Shellenbarger said she was told the mother of the mountain lion cubs was possibly seen around the fire area Saturday, but Shellenbarger said she wasn’t sure what would happen to the young mountain lions now.

“They may try bringing the kittens back, put them back in the place where we found them,” she said.