Wet weather last year and the predicted hot, dry spring and summer will result in a “very extreme’’ potential for wildfires this year.

The situation is complicated by the fact the state is having trouble hiring people to fight those fires once they break out.

“The above-normal rainfall we had through the monsoon season, and the above-normal rainfall we had in December, have put a lot more vegetation and a lot more growth onto our vegetation,’’ John Truett, Arizona’s fire management officer, said Thursday.

“Then we had the drier-than-normal conditions the last three months, which now has dried out all those fuels to be available for wildland fires.’’

John Truett, the state fire management officer, details the factors he said could lead to a particularly dangerous fire season as Gov. Doug Ducey listens.

Even the areas that were burned in the last two years — 900,000 acres in 2020 and 500,000 in 2021 — are not immune from being at risk again, Truett said.

“All those have gotten a lot of grass growing in them,’’ he said. “So they could actually re-burn now.’’

Competition for firefighters

At the same time, Truett noted, the extreme drought throughout the West has left Arizona in “heavy competition’’ with other federal, state and local agencies to find qualified people to fight such fires.

“We’re having a hard time filling our vacancies,’’ he said. “We go out and recruit. We just don’t have enough folks that are willing to come out and do the job that we do.’’

He said the state currently has more than 80 firefighters, declining to say how many vacancies remain in his Department of Forestry and Fire Management.

It isn’t just the permanent jobs that matter, Truett said, but also the seasonal positions the state is trying to fill now.

Prevention first

That’s part of why it’s crucial to try to stop fires from starting in the first place, he said.

Some of that involves the normal warnings about not burning on windy days, making sure if you’re towing a trailer that the chain is not scraping the ground and causing sparks, and not pulling a vehicle into high grasses where the hot catalytic converter could ignite materials.

On a more proactive level, the state is trying to reduce hazardous vegetation.

Arizona has historically tried to “treat’’ about 4,000 to 5,000 acres a year and has a goal this year of hitting 20,000 acres. That does not count similar programs run by the U.S. Forest Service.

Funds for crews

One thing helping to meet that goal is that the state is training low-risk inmates to do some of this thinning.

On Wednesday, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry graduated its latest crew of more than 100 to help with that job.

Gov. Doug Ducey said he is proposing an additional $36 million for the Healthy Forest Initiative in his budget for the coming fiscal year for continued expansion of inmate crews and other programs to help clear hazardous vegetation, bringing the total allocated to more than $42 million.

State corrections officials said the program, which involves inmates operating equipment and machinery used in the timber industry, can get them skills that will help them find employment after they complete their sentences.

The governor said he also is putting another $17 million into a revolving fund that would be used to reimburse local fire departments that help respond to wildfires.

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Howard Fischer is a veteran journalist who has been reporting since 1970 and covering state politics and the Legislature since 1982. Follow him on Twitter at “@azcapmedia” or email azcapmedia@gmail.com.