U.S. Forest Service

Grant applications are being accepted by the National Forest’s Coconino Resource Advisory Committee for forest health and restoration projects. Improvement projects are mainly done on federal lands within Coconino County, including the Coconino and Kaibab National Forests and sections of the Prescott and Apache-Sitgreaves Forests.

A new report highlights several logging projects in the U.S. that environmental groups say are endangering some of the nation’s oldest forests. Among the threatened areas is a 15,000-acre swath on the Kaibab Plateau near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

U.S. officials are testing a new wildfire retardant after two decades of buying millions of gallons annually from one supplier.

Forest Service officials will temporarily close certain areas of both the Coconino and Kaibab national forests beginning Friday and Saturday due to fire danger. The move comes as several large wildfires burn across northern Arizona.

Forest Service officials have announced they will temporarily close certain areas of both the Coconino and Kaibab national forests beginning Friday and Saturday due to fire danger and for public safety.

Public land managers will put heightened fire restrictions in place across southern Arizona this week amid continued hot and dry conditions.

Federal officials are warning that expanding drought conditions coupled with hot and dry weather, extreme wind and unstable atmospheric conditions have led to explosive fire behavior in the Southwest.

Officials on the Prescott National Forest have expanded the closure area put in place because of the Crooks Fire burning in the Bradshaw Mountains and will also implement stage 1 fire restrictions next week.

Though it’s still early in the year, this fire season has already been a costly one as nearly a dozen large wildfires have scorched hundreds of thousands of across the U.S. In Arizona, the combined costs of battling the Tunnel and Crooks fires have exceeded $12 million.

U.S. Forest Service officials say they’re going ahead with the removals of about 20 feral horses on the Apache National Forest.