SCOTTSDALE — Months without substantial rain or snow, high winds and dead brush blanketing the desert floor are all creating potentially risky situations for fires in the state.
On Thursday, the Scottsdale Fire Department quickly stopped a brush fire in the Sereno Canyon Community.
“It was quickly moving, we are at a construction site,” Capitan Dave Folio said. “Nothing like California, my hearts and prayers from the Scottsdale Fire Department go out to everyone in California.”
Although it was a small fire, it underscores the unseasonably dry fire risk across Arizona.
“Only ten percent of the years or so have it such that we get no precipitation from November through early January, so it’s pretty rare,” Flagstaff National Weather Service Meteorologist Darren McCollum said.
While crews from across the state are answering the call to help save lives in California’s devastating fires, firefighters are also still working to contain the 8,000-acre Horton Fire outside Payson.
“We’ll give them as much equipment as we can knowing that we still have a fire season, we have active fires here,” John Truett, with Arizona Forestry and Fire Management, said. “We used to have smaller fires but now with some of these weather events coming in, we’re getting May-type fires in January.”
Truett said resources are also stretched this time of year, as federal and state wildfire reinforcements typically show up to staff wildland teams in the spring.
“We have our strongest workforce during what we call prime fire season but right now, we don’t have our strongest workforce available to us now,” Truett said. “So some of our strategies and tactics have to change.”
Agencies across the state are training for the increased fire risk and thinning brush from high-risk areas like beside roadways.
“If you don’t do a fuel mitigation project to clear some of that out in some areas, it could turn catastrophic so that’s why it’s so important to do it up here,” Folio said.
Officials are asking people to do the same near their properties and have an emergency plan just in case.
“It could be any time of year, be ready,” Truett said.
Folio also said community support for funding through Prop 490, which passed in November, will also help boost the fire mitigation efforts they do throughout the area.
