Firefighters begin weeklong training

(Tooele-AP) -- More than 500 firefighters from throughout Utah
began a week of training today at the third annual Utah Wildfire
Academy.
Instructors from Utah, Colorado and Arizona are teaching 27
different courses. Later this week, classroom time will give way to outdoor
workshops in which students will put their skills to work on a
controlled fire.
Experts say the firefighters will need the training. The
upcoming wildfire season figures to be busier than most for much of
the Eastern Great Basin, which includes northwest Arizona, Utah,
southwestern Wyoming and southern Idaho.
Last year, a total of two-thousand and 32 fires burned more than
325-thousand acres within the basin. More than 230-thousand acres
were burned in Utah alone.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)