Typical grass fires, especially in California, also are more likely to burn in more populated areas, forcing firefighters to protect people and structures.

"The typical grass fire is scooting around among houses," she said. "It's a much more dangerous fire fight and a much less efficient fire fight."

Also facing a heightened risk are the extreme north and the Northwest. Paul Werth, fire meteorologist with the National Interagency Fire Center, said those areas, from the east slopes of the Washington Cascades through Montana, had drier winters and springs and could see more fire activity than normal.

Fire officials agree the higher elevations are likely to escape blazes, due in part to the heavy snowpack remaining in many areas. Indeed, mountain areas of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado received considerable snowfall as late as June, including up to 2 feet in Utah's higher elevations.

"It's going to be hard to get a fire going in the mountains," said Bill Alder, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Salt Lake City.

But while late-season moisture has delayed the start of the fire season by as much as a month throughout the West, it does not necessarily mean it will be a shorter season.

Jay Ellington, fire intelligence coordinator for the Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque, spanning Arizona, New Mexico and the westernmost portions of Texas, said that while the region's fire season generally wraps up at the end of July when monsoons blow in off the Pacific, those storms are now expected to arrive late and lose their power, meaning several more weeks of fire threat.

It also means the lightning storms that generally precede the monsoons will be pushed into the region after the brush on the ground has had at least a week longer than usual to dry.

"Our fire danger now is anywhere from high to extreme," Ellington said. "The fuel loads in Arizona as well as New Mexico have increased dramatically. We're in a position now where we could be pretty busy."

Werth said that is especially true in eastern New Mexico, which has suffered from the same drought conditions that have stretched across much of the Deep South. As every fire official is quick to point out, the fire season depends, almost exclusively, on the weather.

"We're kind of watching this El Nino-La Nina phenomenon," Werth said, referring to the cooling masses of water in the Pacific Ocean that follow the El Nino warming trend.

"El Nino is fading fast, and we're going to be going into a fairly strong La Nina phenomenon. When that occurs, we could have the possibility of a dry fall," he said, especially in California, Arizona and New Mexico.