Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs [D] and Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management Officer John Truett held a press conference in Phoenix last month to discuss the outlook for the 2025 wildfire season, which they said has the potential to be extremely active and to share prevention tips with the public.
“We all need to take personal responsibility and make sure that when we are outdoors on public lands, we are not leaving camp fires unattended, that we are being as cautious as possible when using tools that that can cause sparks, use spark arresters securing chains on vehicles and not pulling vehicles off the road into tall grasses,” Hobbs said. “Most fires are human-caused, not maliciously, but by taking these actions, we can all do our part to prevent them. Wild fire prevention saves lives, it protects property and preserves our land.”
Hobbs’ opened with a common refrain about how “wildfire season is year round” in Arizona because of climate change.
“A wet winter and an extended winter will shorten the fire season up,” Truett said. “Now that we went into this fall with the very dry conditions, all that carry-over vegetation now has dried. It’s about two to three weeks ahead of time as far as curing goes. So we’re looking at an earlier spring of the fuels and a longer duration of a fire season.”
Hobbs said that DFFM has preemptively burned over 23,000 acres in the state since July, with a goal of reaching 30,000 acres by the end of the fiscal year. DDFFM statewide is responsible for protecting 22 million acres of state and private lands.
Officials warned of an active 2025 wildfire season, with Yavapai County among the areas at high risk.
A DFFM press release stated that prior to the precipitation the Verde Valley received in March, local fire personnel had recorded historically low live fuel moisture levels in brush across Yavapai County and areas south of the Mogollon Rim into the Sonoran Desert, making vegetation highly flammable.
“We’re experiencing a very extreme dryness in our vegetation this year. It’s heightened awareness that any start is going to go and it’s going to really tap into our resources and our ability to fight fire,” Truett said. “Arizona fire service in general is going to be tasked this year, just due to the dryness of the fire season that’s at hand … A lot of our starts are human-caused, and they can be preventable, so just be cautious when you’re out, using, clearing your properties, out recreating, towing chains.”
Truett mentioned the Saddlebrook Fire incident, in which 18 fires along 20 miles of State Route 79 north of Oracle Junction burned 287 acres on March 28, which was believed to have been caused by sparks from chains dragging from a hitch. He pointed to the single event as evidence that “the probability of ignition is way up.”
A DFFM press release stated that in 2024, firefighters responded to 2,162 fires that burned 282,507 acres in Arizona, an increase from 2023’s 1,831 fires that burned 188,000 acres.
State Forester Tom Torres said that DFFM has not “experienced any cuts to already awarded grants, whether they’re for making resources available to our partners that include local fire districts or monies that we use to work with our federal partners to address wildfires,” and that his department is “almost fully staffed” with its seasonal firefighters.
“I’ve been in the state for a long time. This is one of the most critical years that we’ve seen in our careers,” Truett said. “You don’t need an extreme event right now to have fire carry, and we’re having multiple fires carry through the state. Once that comes, it stretches the resources very thin.”
