Why Arizona Gets Scorched by Severe Wildfires

The core problem is too much fuel — trees — resulting from a lack of more frequent, less devastating surface fires. The ponderosa pine forests of Arizona's Mogollon Rim, which form the southern limit of the Colorado Plateau, are the poster child for this phenomenon, Wally Covington, a regents' professor in forest ecology and executive director of The Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University, told LiveScience.