The U.S. House approved a massive package of bills to address the growing threat of wildfire and drought in the West, including a permanent firefighter pay raise and several water bills - including $500 million to help declining Colorado River Basin reservoirs. Read more»

Advocates welcomed the announcement this week that pay for federal firefighters will increase by as much as $20,000 this year, what one official called a potentially “life-changing” step for the chronically underpaid crews. Read more»

A group of public employees said the Biden administration is failing to provide scientific evidence regarding its definition of dangerous forever chemicals leading to more claims that the current definition is too narrow and the EPA is missing some toxins. Read more»

More firefighters appear to be falling ill with COVID-19 and quarantining this year than last year, the officials say, because of the highly contagious delta variant and mixed adherence to COVID-19 safety measures such as masking, vaccinations and social distancing. Read more»

Fighting wildfires did not get any easier this month, but it did get a little more profitable for thousands firefighters employed by the federal government as the departments of Agriculture and Interior bumped the minimum wage for federal firefighters up to $15 an hour. Read more»

The sweeping infrastructure bill that the U.S. Senate passed on Tuesday would lay the groundwork for raising federal wildland firefighter pay, one month after Pres. Biden announced one-time raises and bonuses to ensure they earn at least $15 an hour. Read more»

Climate change is a big part of why wildfires are getting worse, but active fire suppression contributes to what is often referred to as the wildland fire paradox – the more we prevent fires in the short term, the worse wildfires become when they return. Read more»

Forecasts for high temperatures and precipitation bode ill for the American West, already in the throes of a prolonged drought and attempting to quell hundreds of large wildfires scattered across nine states. Read more»

Despite the inordinate number of fires burning across America’s heat-afflicted West, communities have managed to evade death and destruction so far, but experts warn conditions appear conducive to a severe fire season as the summer deepens into fall. Read more»

Gov. Doug Ducey was one of just three Western governors that the White House didn’t invite to a meeting on wildfires that the Biden administration convened, despite the particularly nasty fire season that Arizona is currently facing. Read more»

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he will host a meeting next week of Western governors, Cabinet members and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials "to prepare for heat, drought and wildfires in the West." Read more»

City officials said they will indefinitely suspend operations at the Tucson Airport Remediation Project water treatment plant to keep it from being overwhelmed by an underground toxic chemical plume containing high levels of the chemical PFAS that could be moving toward the plant. Read more»

Federal wildland firefighter jobs in California are sitting open even as the West heads into what’s likely to be a brutal fire season, and that's not just a problem for California. Read more»

Hundreds of cars came and went at a steady pace on Dec. 31 through the multiple lanes set up at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. The state has been looking to speed up the rollout of the vaccine and get the 314,000 doses it has received so far into distribution. Read more»

The acreage torched by wildfires in Arizona was up sharply this year, but fire officials said it was still not a particularly bad season in terms of lives lost and structures burned in the blazes. Read more»