COVID-19 will make the coming wildfire season one of the toughest yet, Arizona fire officials said Thursday.

The decision to cut more than 1,300 old-growth trees last summer in an Arizona forest has been criticized for breaking trust with the thinning project’s backers.

The state’s highest court won’t let homeowners burned out by the Yarnell Hill fire sue the state for negligence. And that, according to an attorney for those affected, has bad implications for others who own property throughout the state.

Comparing the state’s firefighting actions to “Keystone Cops,’’ the attorney for Yarnell residents who lost their homes in the 2013 blaze wants the Court of Appeals to let them sue the state.

Forest officials are giving the go-ahead this week for a project to reduce the risk of wildfire on more than 15,000 acres near Williams.

Anyone cited for violating restrictions on campfires or smoking in Arizona's national forests will have to show up in court.

The science is in and the time to act on forest management is now if the government wants to avoid more catastrophic wildfires, a panel of wildfire experts told a House committee Thursday.

Yarnell's water system is getting a $225,000 donation of pipe for restoration and repair work in the wake of the wildfire that devastated the Yavapai County community last summer.

WASHINGTON – For every dollar the government spends preventing wildfire damage, it could save cash-strapped agencies like the Forest Service another $5 on fighting increasingly large fires, a Senate committee was told Tuesday.

Tucked inside the bill that reopened the federal government late Wednesday night was language guaranteeing that border-security measures, specifically radar surveillance blimps, would continue to be funded into 2014.