Arizona may face a hotter and drier year than average - putting it at risk for wildfires, a group of climatology experts and fire officials said yesterday.

Tim Brown, director of the Desert Research Institute Program for Climate, Ecosystem and Fire Applications, announced the climate forecast yesterday at the third annual Fire in the West workshop at the University of Arizona.

There is a 70 percent chance that Arizona's temperatures will be above normal between now and August, Brown said. Though "it is not an official forecast, that's pretty high confidence," he said.

Also, the data showed that there is a 65 percent chance that Arizona's precipitation will be lower than normal from now until May, Brown said, which may abet the region's fire risk.

Forecasts were also made for other U.S. geographical regions, marking the first time such a consensus was met among experts from different agencies including the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Diagnostics Center.

The workshop was sponsored by CEFA, the UA Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and the Tucson National Weather Service forecast office.