In this 12 September 2010 file photo, a slurry bomber drops retardant on a burning ridge as the sun sets behind it as a wildfire burns near Loveland, Colo. The West's 2012 wildfire season exploded in earnest last month with a wind-whipped blaze that killed three people in rugged alpine canyon country near Denver. At its peak, it took a 700-strong federal firefighting team a week of labor, day and night, to tame the blaze, and other states throughout the West took notice. Ed Andrieski / AP Photo

By REMA RAHMAN, Associated Press, with AP writers Todd Dvorak in Boise, Idaho, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M., Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Ariz., Matt Volz in Helena, Mont., Paul Foy in Salt Lake City, Jeff Barnard in Grants Pass, Ore., Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu and Bob Moen in Cheyenne, Wyo.
13 April 2012 DENVER (AP) – The West’s 2012 wildfire season exploded in earnest last month with a wind-whipped blaze that killed three people in rugged alpine canyon country near Denver. It took a 700-strong federal firefighting team a week of labor, day and night, to tame the blaze — and other states throughout the West took notice. Fire experts say this year’s drought, low snowpack and record-high temperatures in much of the West portend a dangerous installment of what has become a year-round wildfire threat. Wildfires burned more than 1,500 square miles in Arizona last year and have already torched about 12 square miles this year. Most were caused by people, and fire officials hope the public has learned some lessons from the Wallow Fire, the worst in state history. Campfire embers ignited a blaze that forced nearly 10,000 people to evacuate their homes. New Mexico, too, experienced its two biggest-ever wildfires in 2011, consuming 245 and 160 square miles, respectively. “We are approaching this as a season where we still have very high fire danger and there are millions of acres around New Mexico that could burn,” said Dan Ware, a New Mexico State Forestry Division spokesman. January and February were the driest on record in California, where the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has battled 679 fires in its jurisdiction — about a third of the state — since Jan. 1, compared to 210 over the same period last year. Fire threats are expected to be above normal in the mountains, the central coast and inland areas such as San Bernardino County, said department spokesman Daniel Berlant. Nearly all of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah have drought conditions that should persist at least through June, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb. For much of the West, snowfall this winter was disappointing. Snowpack in Colorado and Utah is only half of average and diminishing fast. Salt Lake City reported its fourth-driest March ever; Denver had a trace of precipitation in what traditionally is the snowiest month of the year. “Things are heating up and drying out,” said Jason Curry of the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands in Utah, where fire officials monitor parched high grasses left over from bountiful 2011 precipitation. “We’ve got our eyes on the hills.” In many areas, grass, brush, timber and other wildfire fuels didn’t get a winter soaking that allows them to retain water. California had a few storms in March, but “when you miss three or four months without any rain, it just becomes too late,” Berlant said. […] Many of the firefighters called in from California and New Mexico to combat the deadly Colorado wildfire had just been hired in what normally passes as pre-fire season, said Rich Harvey, incident commander for the fire and a deputy state forester with the Nevada Division of Forestry. Now, he said, “there is a sense of urgency to get firefighters hired on.” “You should be skiing at 8,000 feet in Colorado, not fighting fires in March,” Harvey said. “It looks like July on the ground.”

Western states prepare for dangerous fire season via The Oil Drum