PAYSON ÷ In a year when forests are drier than cut wood, the Westās worst fears are being realized across the region: Huge fires burning out of control at once. Tens of thousands evacuated. Hundreds left homeless. Fire crews fatigued and stretched thin as more blazes erupt.

It is unprecedented ÷ and with summer not even a week old, it is unlikely to end anytime soon.

By this point in the 2000 fire season, the nationās worst in a half-century, 1.3 million acres had burned across the United States. This year, that number has topped 2.3 million.

In 2000, the worst fire of the season was the one that tore through Los Alamos, N.M., scorching about 43,000 acres and leveling 235 homes. This year, two fires burning simultaneously in Arizona and Colorado have burned almost a half-million acres and destroyed at least 462 homes.

The fire season grew more dire this week with the Arizona blaze.

For the experts, this season is the culmination of years of warnings about forests thick with brush and other debris, about the dangers of building more and more homes farther into the woods, and about what can happen when drought is thrown into the mix.