“We are just as dry, if not drier, than we were in 2002, when we had huge wildfires in the West, so that should certainly serve as a warning,” said Dan Binkley, director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute at Colorado State University. “But a lot depends on what happens during the rest of the season. If you get some rain in the right places, it could merely be a bad fire year, instead of a historic one.”

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