2020 expected to be ‘extreme’ for AZ wildfires
PHOENIX – Public lands in Arizona and perhaps the Western U.S. appear to be facing the most extreme year for wildland fire in more than a decade. The month of May was a record year for fire occurrence in Arizona. From May 1 to May 31, Arizona experienced 527 wildfires burning 81,536 acres. As of last week, Arizona has already experienced 941 wildfires this year burning 169,069 acres, of which 896 (95 percent) of those fires were human cased. In 2019, from January 1 to June 1, we had 689 fires burning only 47,000 acres of state, federal and tribal…