You might say Curtis Heaton is an intimate of this temperamental being. Forest fire management officer for Prescott National Forest, his working relationship with fire spans 22 years and several government agencies. It’s Heaton’s job to get up close and personal with fire. He knows where it lives, what it eats, what drives it and what stops it. There are times when he and his colleagues feed and tend it, others when these brave souls enter its blazing heart to stamp it out. From their decidedly non-dramatic offices at the Forest Service’s Prescott Fire Center, Heaton and his colleagues study fire conditions and each season predict where danger lurks.

Fire season 2007 is looking a lot like 2006, Heaton said in an early April interview. This is good, because fire mangers know what to expect – and bad, because it indicates a disturbing trend toward a longer, more dangerous season.

Heaton plans for 80 to 100 fires each season primarily by monitoring fuel load – dead vegetation – and weather. This year, both spell trouble for the Prescott National Forest. Heaton refers to maps, graphs and computers to explain what less sophisticated means of nature-watching can also show. “You don’t have to be a meteorologist to look at the weather and see it’s not normal anymore,” he said, pointing to a computer-generated mass of zigzags resembling the electrocardiogram of a heart spasming under cardiac arrests. The graph plots current fire danger against 30-year historic data. Like 2006, 2007 was already setting records in February, with high temperatures, low moisture and a large fuel load fed by continuing drought. “We’re running May-June fire conditions in March,” Heaton said.

This was just two weeks after fire managers learned a hard lesson about making predictions in a changing climate. When they prescribed a burn about 10 miles south of Prescott March 12, conditions were typical and ideal. Less than 24 hours later, the temperature shot up to an unseasonable 82 degrees and the fire danger tripled. Though the burn was never out of control, the heat threatened green vegetation and Heaton reclassified it as the Palace Fire, the first in a season that doesn’t officially begin until May. “We’re setting the new norms,” he said.

The extended season adds stress to vegetation such as drought-decimated Ponderosa pine and usually fire-resistant manzanita, a surprise addition to this year’s fuel load. It shortens the window for preventative tactics such as prescribed burning and brush crushing. It makes it hard to staff crews and causes fatigue. It also costs more. Last year, the US Forest Service spent a record $1.5 billion to suppress fires on a record nine million acres, of which 177,000 were in Arizona.

Heaton’s $2 million 2007 budget should cover staffing, equipment and lots of forest fire electrocardiograms, but it can’t provide the one resource he and counterparts all over the West most desire: spring rain.

For more information:

Every year, hazardous wildfire conditions prompt National Forest supervisors in the Southwest to enact fire restrictions followed by partial and then full closures to all recreation. For information about restrictions and closures in the Prescott National Forest, visit . For other National Forests in Arizona and New Mexico, the address is www.fs.fed.us/r3/.

The National Incident Information Center cranks up at the start of wildfire season, posting maps and the Morning Report online every day, providing information on the current wildland fire situation, regional fire summaries, weather reports, burned area rehabilitation activities and closure orders for fires 500 acres and larger.