The unprecedented drought that's crippling Montana and North Dakota

It came without warning, and without equivalent. Now a flash drought is fueling fires and hurting the lives of those who work the land

When Rick Kirn planted his 1,000 acres of spring wheat in May, there were no signs of a weather calamity on the horizon. Three months later, when he should have been harvesting and getting ready to sell his wheat, Kirn was staring out across vast cracked, gray, empty fields dotted with weeds and little patches of stunted wheat.

“It’s a total loss for me,” said Kirn, who operates a small family wheat farm on the Fort Peck Reservation, an area of north-eastern Montana that lies right in the heart of the extreme climatic episode. “There’s nothing to harvest.”

This is as dry as it’s been in history. A lot of people try to compare this to previous years, but you just can’t

Related: Twin megastorms have scientists fearing this may be the new normal