PRESCOTT — A cacophony of chainsaws and shovels hitting the earth filled the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University campus grounds as wildland firefighters-in-training, clad in bright yellow jackets and fire helmets, cleared a straight line through the overgrown brush.
Under expert instruction, the students formed a firebreak, a strategic barrier created by wildland fire crews to help prevent the uncontrolled spread of flames, as a part of their entry-level field course work.
Matthew Merola, a student in the beginners’ class, wiped the sweat from his brow on a sunny March day as his team moved into coiling fire hoses. He’s been passionate about firefighting for a long time, and this course is the first step toward fulfilling his dream. After seeing the destruction caused by the wildfires in Los Angeles in January, his motivation grew.
“I know this is the first place that you gotta come to start that journey,” Merola said. “ I feel bad for those people out there who lost their homes. I feel if there’s something we can do, that I can do, to help, that’s my dream.”
The need for a unified and adequately trained wildland firefighting workforce has never been more critical as experts warn that Arizona’s 2025 wildfire season could be more widespread than recent years amid ongoing drought.
In 2024, 2,162 fires burned on state, federal and tribal land in Arizona, an 18% increase from 2023, according to the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management.
Wildland fire training attracts students from diverse backgrounds
Since 2003, the Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy has attracted students from across the region, offering courses ranging from basic wildland firefighter training to advanced incident command courses.
This year about 840 students participated in the nonprofit academy. The courses are prescribed by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, the government agency that establishes national standards for wildland firefighters, ensuring that federal, state, tribal and local partners can work together to combat a wildfire.
Kurt Streiter (second from right) and Ryan Hoffman (third from right) instruct students on digging a fireline during the Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, on March 20, 2025.
As the potential for wildfire activity increases, trainees and veteran firefighters are preparing at training sessions all over the state, bolstering the thousands of firefighters in Arizona who are ready to respond when called.
“We have 31 states represented at the academy. And they are everything from volunteer fire departments to rural, municipal, county, state, and federal, and contractors,” said Libby Reiman, director of the Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy. “They may not be affiliated as well. Everything from 18-year-olds to 70-year-olds. I don’t know if we had any over 70, but it’s pretty close.”
Merola, who is recovering from drug addiction and was formerly incarcerated, represents one of the diverse backgrounds at this year’s academy.
“There’s new things that we’re learning every day, new rules, new laws, new equipment and there’s always something to improve on,” Merola said. “And we need more guys on the line, I know that. They know they need more people out there, so that’s one of my first thoughts — throw me in, coach.”
Wildland firefighter’s plan for extreme conditions across landscapes
Fire engines from across the Valley filled the parking lot at the Hank Raymond Lodge at Lake Pleasant on March 26 as members of the Central Arizona Wildland Response Team began their annual training.
Firefighters from Goodyear and Maricopa practiced rapidly deploying bright green practice shelters over their bodies alongside teams from Guadalupe and Rio Verde. The single-person shelters are used to protect a firefighter from the heat and flames of a blaze in a life or death situation.
Coordinating resources can be complex in wildfire scenarios, especially when wildfires burn in remote and inaccessible places.
Approximately 20 local fire districts in central Arizona participate in the Central Arizona Wildland Response Team, a coalition of cooperating fire districts that work statewide and nationally to coordinate and strategically mobilize firefighting resources. Within all the cooperating fire districts, the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management can call on about 2,500 firefighters throughout the state.
Garrett Thomas, crew captain for the Perryville Fire Crew, instructs firefighters from around the Valley using a sand table, a tool that allows wildfire response teams to make tactical decisions on March 26, 2025.
Every year, Arizona officials also draw on federal resources and other states through a national ordering system to help respond during the busiest weeks of peak fire activity.
“Our ordering system will shoot the order out nationwide and we’ll get resources. And we always do every year,” said Tiffany Davila, a communications official at the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management. “We get people in from Oregon, New Mexico, Washington. When it gets kind of hairy is in June and July when those states start burning as well and then they have to go home.”
In 2024, Arizona joined the Great Plains Interstate Fire Compact through bipartisan legislation signed into law by Gov. Katie Hobbs. The compact allows Arizona’s officials to use direct state-to-state agreements to mobilize resources without relying solely on the federal ordering system.
The other states in the compact include New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakotas, Wyoming, and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
“It streamlines the process. It’s a direct order right to the state, and so we used the compact last year just to figure it out. We were able to get a hand crew from South Dakota here last year for two weeks to help the state out,” Davila said. “It’s just another ordering mechanism.”
Those in the compact can also order resources from Arizona, which makes wildland fire training, like the sessions held by the Central Arizona Wildland Response Team, even more necessary.
“We’re really going over that training to make sure that it’s really honed, so by the time we go on a wildland fire, it’s a seamless transition from structure fire to this,” said Anthony Martin, an engineer with the Goodyear Fire Department with 18 years of experience.
“What really made me want to come into the fire services is that camaraderie, being able to depend on other people and have them depend on you. We all help each other out,” Martin said. “So it’s a big family, really, is what it is. And we help each other get through difficult situations.”
John Leos covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to john.leos@arizonarepublic.com.
Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona wildfire training academy in Prescott readies crews for summer