Arizona saw fewer wildfires in 2023 than usual. Here's why

Arizona's wet winter kept its fire season in check, delaying the start by a month, leading to below-average burn totals across the state, officials said.

The typical timeline — running from May to October and peaking during the summer months — has always posed a critical threat to the state's overall well-being.

Over the years, though, officials have changed how they gauge the season to adapt to the changing conditions and landscape. What was once a five-month timetable has expanded into a year-round fire season.

“We really don't say we have a ‘fire season’ because we can have activity throughout the state year-round,” Arizona’s Department of Forestry and Fire Management spokesperson Tiffany Davila told The Arizona Republic in May.

Its activity has shifted as well, moving from an expected late April start to possibly as early as late February, according to Donald Falk, a researcher at the University of Arizona who specializes in fire history and ecology, ecosystem resilience and restoration.

For 2023, it was actually the opposite.

Thanks to a predominantly wet winter and spring entering the year, Arizona's wildfire season was delayed by a month, not seeing fire activity increase steadily until the end of June, Davila told The Republic.

"We were fortunate to have pretty good winter precipitation and really a cool and slightly wetter than normal spring also. So fire season was slow to ramp up this year. I think in Arizona, we were all the way through June really before we started seeing much for high fire danger and any significant fire activity," said Wade Reaves, Arizona Bureau of Land Management fire mitigation and trespass specialist.

Heavy snowpack and cooler temperatures slowed the wildfire season not only in Arizona but in most of the West as well.

Dry monsoon's impact on wildfires

Since the wildfires didn't really ramp up until the early days of the monsoon, meteorologists and fire officials were hopeful that precipitation would further mitigate any oncoming formidable fires, as it did in 2022.

It did not.

The monsoon ultimately failed to materialize, posting some of the driest rain totals for the state — especially for Phoenix — and bringing one of the worst heat waves seen in recent memory. Hotter temperatures with below-average rain totals created much more favorable conditions to fuel fires.

"A lot of years, parts of Arizona start getting significant rainfall by the first or second week of July. We really didn't see that," Reaves said.

However, a caveat to the lackluster monsoon was a decrease in lightning activity, keeping a common fire starter at bay, likely assisting in the below-average fire totals this year, Reaves noted.

Arizona wildfire guide: Here is everything to know to prepare and stay safe

How many wildfires burned in Arizona in 2023?

As of Nov. 5, Arizona had 1,756 wildfires in 2023, burning 181,678 acres across state, federal and tribal jurisdictions, according to the Arizona Department of Fire and Forestry Management.

It's the most wildfires recorded in the state over the last few years since 2020 when it saw 2,477 fires, but is far below both 2021 and 2020 in terms of acres burned — 595,135 and 980,308 acres, respectively.

The largest fire this year was the human-caused Pilot Fire, which began on July 1, 20 miles east of Wikieup, torching 34,810 acres.

Davila said calculations over the last several years show that 70% of Arizona wildfires are human-caused.

"While we didn't have any significantly large fires this year — or fires that necessitated a Type 1 Incident Management Team — southern Arizona did keep resources busy, as predicted," Davila said. "Fire activity stayed high and steady in that area for a few months. While there was some fire in northern Arizona, fire activity stayed moderate in the higher country."

Officials said they welcomed the decline in acres burned this year.

"We still have the rest of November and December, and there's always some wildfire activity all the way through the year," Reaves said. "But it certainly looks like we're going to be below average on total number of acres burning this year, which is a nice change."

As it stands, 2023 is well below half of the recent five-year average for total acres burned, which sits at 456,448.

What could Arizona see for the 2024 wildfire season?

Looking ahead to 2024, it's possible that a similar start to the year could be in store for Arizona, pending the results of the "strong" incoming El Niño. However, officials such as Reaves said they weren't ready to make any predictions just yet.

"That's the big story that everybody's gonna be watching the next few months is to see how the El Niño transpires. Typically, it gives us a little better-than-average shot at above-normal precipitation in Arizona, but you never know. I've seen it go both ways where that doesn't pan out. Of course, we've seen those years when we're flooding through the winter too.

"So it's hard at this point to really predict where we're going to be. We don't have a real good idea, usually until February or March, how we're looking headed into fire season," Reaves said.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona saw fewer wildfires, acres burned than usual in 2023