Inciweb

The Bighorn Fire.

Wildfire season in Arizona has been especially brutal compared to previous years. Tiffany Davilla is with the state’s department of forestry and fire management. She says while fire activity has decreased, there is the possibility that we could see more fires in October and possibly November.

"You still have fire restrictions in place across the state on state and federal lands," she said. "And again, this is unusual to have fire restrictions at this time of the year. But again, it all brings us all full circle back to the lack of monsoon, the lack of precipitation."

This year alone, 875,000 acres have burned in the state — that’s more than 2018 and 2019 combined. 

Another challenge facing firefighters was our weather.

"Well, we had 100 degrees in April. Something we don’t usually see. So that dried out the pine fields very quickly. Once a fire starts in that grass it moves very fast. It spreads very rapidly and grows very quickly. "

Davila says because of the number of fires raging in California, Oregon and Washington, resources like hand-crews and aircraft are becoming scarce.