The U.S. is in the midst of its worst wildfire season in 10 years. Close to 50,000 wildfires have burned more than 7 million acres. Much of this activity has been concentrated in Oregon and Washington.
Despite warnings of a highly active season for the Southwest, fires in Arizona have contributed less than 1% of the nationwide acreage total, making it a rather mild year for fire activity in the state.
Tiffany Davila, a public affairs officer for the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, says 1,386 fires in the state have burned a total of 60,724 acres. That’s slightly more fires than last year, but much less than the 306,445 acres that burned, mostly from the Dragon Bravo Fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Still, Davilla says Arizona’s fire season is year-round, and there’s no guarantee a major fire won’t kick up in the fall.
According to John Truett, the Arizona state fire management officer, there are a few reasons the state’s acreage may be smaller, even during a record fire year.
With the exception of the Pocket Fire near Sedona, “we didn’t have any real starts in real difficult areas,” said Truett. This made it easier for personnel to reach flames before they could spread out of control.
Secondly, he thinks a proactive outreach and education helped limit the amount of fire starts in vulnerable areas.
“Our prevention program and the messaging may be finally catching on. You know folks not dragging chains as much and those kinds of things,” Truett said.
That tracks with what Molly McCormick, program manager of the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, shared in an email to KJZZ.
“Strategic closing of forests to motorized vehicles, like what Coconino did around the San Francisco Peaks and other places that received a lot of visitors, greatly reduced the number of human-caused ignitions during the most critical time when fuel moistures are driest,” McCormick said.
Lastly, Truett and McCormick both agreed, this year’s monsoon moisture has been a big help.
McCormick says the monsoon arrived on time and with moisture rates that more closely reflect what’s expected. In recent years, when the monsoon has had a much later start or came with very little rain, that has increased fire risk because dry lightning is one of the leading causes for fires in the state.
“This moisture has greatly reduced fire risk and aided in suppression efforts, even with a normal monsoon-induced uptick in lightning-caused fires,” McCormick said.
Truett says the monsoon moisture relief also makes it easier to send personnel to assist with more serious fires in the Northwest. It’s all based on a system in which fire managers across the country coordinate personnel to match with different regional peaks in the year.
“So you know, during our peak season, you know, May and June, we don’t really assist too many other states,” Truett said. “When the monsoons come in, our fire season ends quicker. So by the time our fire season starts, we have more resources across the state, across the nation to draw on because they’re not busy and vice versa.”
Still, he said, with fire season becoming harder to predict and new nationwide records being set, fire managers’ top concern is whether or not there will be enough personnel.
“There’s not as many resources as there were, you know, 20, 25 years ago,” Truett said. “When you have multiple large fires like they have now, they’re really a resource draw, and so we just kind of keep at the ready with our resources.”
-
Flash floods in the Grand Canyon late last month killed two people and forced the evacuation of dozens of others. Heavy rains led to the flooding at the bottom of the canyon, including at Phantom Ranch. -
Two ASU professors are showing a very personal documentary at the Venice International Film Festival, which is taking place through Sept. 12. And they’re doing it with new technology, which allows for a more immersive experience. -
Giant sequoias only grow naturally in California today. But they once ranged as far east as Colorado, Wyoming and Nevada, before the climate turned drier and pushed them into their current, narrower range. -
So-called process based restoration (PBR) has a number of ecological benefits. But it can make ecosystems more resilient to wildfires when they come, and better able to recover in their wake. -
From Spokane, Wash. to Pueblo County, Colo., fast-moving fires have again wreaked havoc in neighborhoods this summer. Now, a network of scientists, fire professionals and other experts have joined forces to seek research-based solutions to the problem.
