Arizona and the Western United States have struggled with big wildfires in recent years. Mexico’s ecosystem is similar to Arizona’s, but an Northern Arizona University researcher says it has not had a problem with large blazes in its ponderosa forests.

The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management says wildfire dangers still persist in Arizona.

The Bureau of Land Management will burn piles of cut brush near Lake Pleasant and the Forest Service will carry out prescribed burns about 25 miles north of Globe.

Prescribed burns will soon begin in the Coronado National Forest, north of Tucson.

Phoenix will give the Nature Conservancy close to half a million dollars over three years to support flows and water quality in the Salt and Verde River watersheds.

The Forest Service is holding a community meeting Monday night at 6 p.m. to discuss its progress on the Cecil Fire in northern Arizona.

In 2022, a fire tore through 40 square miles of the eastern slopes of the San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff, burning away the trees and grasses that bolster the hills’ resilience against rainwater runoff. Since then, county officials have raced against more rain to control that runoff.

State auditors say they’ve been urging the Fire Marshal’s Office since 1988 to set up a legally required safety inspection program for schools and public buildings. A new review of the Marshal’s parent agency says it still hasn’t happened.

The union representing federal employees is warning that the country could lose up to half its wildland firefighters unless Congress acts ahead of a sunset to a pay raise that dries up in two weeks.