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Several of Missoula’s top federal fire scientists have been denied permission to attend the International Fire Congress later this month, leading conference organizers to suspect censorship of climate-related research.

“Anyone who has anything related to climate-change research — right away was rejected,” said Timothy Ingalsbee of the Association for Fire Ecology, a nonprofit group putting on the gathering. Ingalsbee noted that was his personal opinion, and that the AFE is concerned that a federal travel restriction policy may be more to blame.

“Most of the folks from the Missoula fire lab, the vanguard entity in the Forest Service — all but a handful got cut. We were expecting about 44 scientists from the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and only six or seven have been permitted to attend," Ingalsbee said. "Those folks are doing critical analysis on fire suppression effectiveness, which is a new area of research.”

“I reject that outright,” Rocky Mountain Research Station Director Colin Hardy said Wednesday. “As a leader of scientists and manager of climate science research, that’s simply not true.”

Hardy said the Forest Service allowed his lab to send six people to the Orlando conference. He had 20 applicants.