The wildfire season has barely begun, and already hundreds of homes have burned in Colorado and 66 homes in southern Idaho were destroyed over the weekend. The U.S. secretaries of homeland security and agriculture came to Boise on Tuesday to check in with national fire managers, after a stop in Colorado to inspect damage, and they brought a message: Get ready. The fire season spreads from south to north, and the damage already seen in the southern parts of the west will be spreading to the northern parts of the Rocky Mountain west.

"Everyone should be concerned, everybody should be preparing, preparing as best we can," said Janet Napolitano, homeland security secretary and former governor of Arizona. "It does portend to be a long, hot fire season in the West. We've had them before, we'll have them again. This one has gotten off to a particularly tough start." She urged property owners to clear combustible materials away from structures and create "defensible space" around homes. "What we saw in Colorado was ... when defensible space is created, our firefighters have a much better chance of saving a home or a business," she said.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack echoed that. "We did see today a circumstance where a home was completely obliterated, and next to it there were two homes that weren't touched." Said Napolitano, "We have an opportunity now as we start seeing some rains and moisture coming into the southern part of the West, to help those in the northern part get ready." You can read my full story here at spokesman.com.