Tens of thousands of acres in Arizona have burned during this year’s fire season, which has been slightly busier than last year’s at this time.
Though a spokesperson for the state’s firefighting agency says the number of fires in Arizona so far this year is “nothing crazy,” nationwide, there’s been an unusually high volume of fires and acres burned this fire season.
That’s led some to question the preparedness of federal responders.
The Grand Canyon state has seen 883 fires as of July 15, according to Tiffany Davila, a public affairs officer for the state Department of Forestry and Fire Management. That’s about 50 more fires than last year at this time.
“It's about on track,” says Davila. “It's nothing crazy. We had 883 this year so far, and we had 839 at the same time last year.”
Out of those 883 fires, 714 were caused by humans, Davila noted.
Arizona’s larger blazes this year include the Pocket Fire north of Sedona, the Sycamore Fire by Roosevelt Lake and the Hazen Fire near Buckeye, which started in early May.
All three are either completely contained or are nearing total containment.
But nationally, the number of wildfires across the U.S. and the amount of acres burned is well above the 10-year average.
So far this year, almost 113,000 wildfires have popped up across the country, with more than 3.6 million acres burned in states like Arizona, Utah, Minnesota and Oregon.
“We've had other early years like this, but it's never a good thing,” says Riva Duncan, the president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit advocacy group.
After the quasi-governmental DOGE agency made staffing cuts to the federal agencies that manage fires, Duncan says some, like the ones working on blazes like the Pocket Fire, are unprepared.
“My organization consists of current federal wildland firefighters who know that they have engines sitting because they don't have enough staffing, they have crew numbers down, they have engines that aren't available seven days because they don't have enough people,” Duncan says. “And to be fair, this has been something that's been happening over the last several years.”
The U.S. Wildland Fire Service did not respond to KNAU’s request for an interview for this story.
The U.S. Forest Service, long the nation’s lead wildfire response agency, declined an interview as well.
The challenges Duncan mentioned could wind up mattering in Arizona.
For instance, the Southwest Complex Incident Management Team 2, which managed the response to the Pocket Fire, was a multi-agency command largely composed of federal employees.
But Davila tells KNAU that federal cuts haven’t yet hurt responses to fires in Arizona.
“We've not seen any implications from that,” she says. “We've always had a great partnership with the [U.S.] Forest Service, the [U.S. Bureau of Land Management], Fish and Wildlife. We've never had any issues trying to find resources.”
Federal fires sweep the nation
More than 17,000 people are now assigned to teams fighting 46 large, uncontained fires across the country.
Last week, the federal government activated military air tankers to help, an indicator that private contractors have reached capacity.
And late last month, the National Interagency Fire Center raised the country’s preparedness level to four on a scale of one to five.
Duncan thinks it won’t be long until firefighters from neighboring countries like Canada are called in to help.
Climate change means wildfires are getting larger and more destructive in recent years, and fire seasons are lasting longer.
“We talk about a fire year instead of a fire season now, because summer is always burning. That's been happening for the last couple of decades.”
Duncan says federal fire agencies have faced problems for years: understaffing, lack of adequate medical care for firefighters, aging facilities and layoffs, just to name a few.
“So the DOGE cuts don't help,” she says. “It's just another straw waiting to see if it'll break the camel's back.”
Meteorologists predict an El Niño weather pattern could deliver hotter and drier weather in some parts of Arizona, along with possible flooding, as the monsoon season continues.
