On the whole, though, Eaker said, officials are "planning for a normal year," which he said was a relative term. Currently, all of the wildfires are being allowed to burn, which he said is an option the park service didn't used to take, despite its potential benefits.

"In the last 70 to 80 years, generally, all fires were thought of as bad, and we put them out if we could; we did not hesitate," he said. "That caused a change in forest structures, some species changes, and there was more fuel out there that would have been burned if left to the natural course."

Now, firefighters allow fires to burn when they can, usually when resources and weather conditions allow and there is no potential danger to them, people or structures.

"Today, we know fire is a natural part of the landscape in the West, and we try to utilize it where we can, as safely as we can," Eaker said.

Human-caused fires are much more common than nature-caused fires, he said. He estimated that 85 to 90 percent of fires are human-caused.

"People cause the vast majority of fires, but the most acreage is burned by lightning fires," Eaker said. "The nature of lightning-caused fires is that they strike in the middle of nowhere. If it's human caused, it's usually near a road, which means we can get in there and fight them and put them out pretty quickly."

Bureau of Land Management fire-management officer Sheldon Wimmer said human-caused fires are more likely on park-service land than more remote BLM land. The season's slow start, however, doesn't remove the need for caution, he said.

"Even though it's green, these fine fuels and grasses can and will burn," Wimmer said. "Be careful of campfires and especially all fireworks, which are prohibited within federal lands. Those grasses will burn and can cause a lot of damage."

e-mail: emorgan@desnews.com