Drought is fuel for wildfires in West

A lingering drought has created ideal wildfire conditions across much of the West and Southwest this summer, alarming forestry officials, who already are dealing with an unusually high number of fires.

Nationwide as of the weekend, officials have reported more than 54,000 fires charring more than 3.2 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Both figures were the highest in at least a decade for this point in the year. The 10-year average for the same period was 39,000 fires burning about 1 million acres.

from the Boston Globe