I grew up where two very large fires happened in AZ, the Rodeo-Chediski fire and the Wallow, and I have spent quite a bit of time in those forests, as has my grandfather who was a logger in the area in the 70's. My takeaway is that the forest service spent too much time listening to freshly degreed environmentalists and not enough time listening to locals who know the forest, and have created unintended consequences of huge fires through their insistence against thinning of forests, especially after the pine beetle infestation got crazy. All the old loggers, including my grandfather, were saying we needed to be thinning the forest out, because they were interrupting the normal natural cycle of forest burn through lighting, etc, and by doing preburns too small. I admit I didn't believe he was right, until the fire happened and we all realized that it was mismanagement by the BLM and Forest Service that caused the unnecessary level of devastation.

It makes me wonder if the same thing is happening in other forest areas in the west.

On a side note, I am wondering how much of the lack of moisture is due to unintended consequences of cloud seeding in other areas. Every year I can remember there has been less and less snowfall, which is critical for forests health in the summer, even during the 90's El-Nino.