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(Tooele-AP) -- More than 500 firefighters from throughout Utah began a week of training this week 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.)
