Arizona firefighters prepare for wildfire season following intense March heat

PHOENIX - The record-breaking heat of March has wildland firefighters on alert for what may come this year. On Tuesday, hundreds of firefighters trained together across the state to be prepared for what may be a very busy wildfire season.

Local perspective:

From digging lines to pumping water, this training is preparing wildland firefighters for anything. 

"Doing this course and the training we do out there, this is going to help us to get us prepared for that season. If it's an extreme season, we'll be prepared for it," Captain Steve Reyes with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management said.

Captain Reyes is the incident commander for the Central Arizona Wildland Response Team, or CAWRT, and this is the annual CAWRT drill. Multiple stations and departments are preparing for the worst, after the dry, record-breaking heat in March has raised eyebrows.

"In March, that's interesting. That's something we need to be paying attention to. If we're having fires now, what is that telling us for what's upcoming. Be prepared for it," Reyes said.

Big picture view:

The National Weather Service was even invited to the training, because their localized forecast can be critical when responding to fires.

"They can create their own weather environment," said Matt Salerno of the National Weather Service Phoenix. "The weather behaves a lot differently when you're talking about steep terrain, complex terrain."

And that terrain means no fire hydrants.

"You're going to have porta-tanks, natural resources, creeks, swimming pools, things like that. So these trucks are going over how to get a secondary water source," said Charles Kwiatkowski of the Arizona Fire and Medical Authority.

Dig deeper:

The experienced and inexperienced are learning from each other across departments.

"You have people here who have done it for 10, 20, 30 years and folks brand new that can learn from those folks," Kwiatkowski said.

Department of Corrections fire teams taught high school students how to dig fire lines so they could be the next crop of wildland firefighters.

"Get together, come together, train together, rather than just waiting when they're on the line," Reyes said.

Why you should care:

The drill also included training on the quick deployment of last-resort fire shelters. Dozens of departments and agencies and nearly 400 firefighters are training. The work done here will matter in the weeks ahead.

The leaders said it's the largest joint training exercise in the entire Southwest.