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As the Bighorn Fire burned in the Santa Catalina Mountains this summer, authorities evacuated homes in the Catalina Foothills and the mountaintop town of Summerhaven.

Those communities were spared, but the cost of protecting them exceeded $40 million, according to the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs.

Fires across Arizona have burned over 700,000 acres this year, continuing a trend of larger, more destructive and more expensive wildfires.

There have been over 3,100 recorded wildfires in Arizona larger than 10 acres since 1900.

Source: National Interagency Fire Center

The 10 largest fires in state history have all occurred in the past two decades.

Three of them this year alone.

That's no coincidence.

"2000 was kind of a tipping point between a previous climate era when there had been more snowfall, more rain throughout the year. So there's no question that moving into this extended drought period in the last 20 years has set up a lot of these big fires." Don Falk, University of Arizona fire ecologist

Forests in the Southwest are fire-adapted. They're meant to burn, and when conditions are right, crews can manage natural fires to benefit the forest. 

But these big fires aren't only more destructive. They're also more difficult to fight. They require airplanes to drop fire retardant and helicopters to ferry water.

There's a reason why such drastic and expensive firefighting methods often become necessary: property.

The state's wildland-urban interface — where homes and wilderness intermix — has nearly doubled since 1990, putting nearly 700,000 new homes in areas with a higher risk for fire.

Source: U.S. Forest Service

"People love living in the woods or near the woods. But the more we build houses out in those developed areas, the more imperative there is to try to protect those houses. And they do that by suppressing fire. And that creates more fuel buildup, that eventually sets up the kind of gigantic fires we're seeing." Don Falk, University of Arizona fire ecologist

Protecting those homes is bankrupting firefighting agencies.

The U.S. Forest Service, which handles the brunt of the firefighting costs in the state, now spends nearly two-thirds of its budget suppressing fires.

Source: National Interagency Fire Center

Ironically, the agency often has to draw money from programs aimed at preventing fires.

To pay for fire suppression in 2012, the Forest Service deferred a project to thin the forest in the Verde River watershed to reduce the risk for catastrophic fires in the wildland-urban interface.

Fires also frequently leave the state in the red.

The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management routinely goes over budget for emergency fire suppression, according to an analysis by the State Emergency Council.

Fire suppression costs increased 117% between fiscal years 2015 and 2018.

The trend shows few signs of slowing.

The 2011 Monument Fire burned over 30,500 acres near Sierra Vista in southeast Arizona.

Sixty-four homes were burned to the ground in what was one of the most destructive wildfires in state history.

By 2019, most of those homes had been rebuilt and joined by dozens of new homes on the slopes of the Huachuca Mountains. 

While local authorities help with fire prevention and preparedness, the conversation about where people should and shouldn't live quickly becomes political.