Wildfire is something that most people who live in remote areas are still coming to grips with. The devastating fires of 2002, which consumed more than seven million acres of U.S. land, brought the issue ever closer, literally, to the homes of thousands of mountain and foothill residents here and in Canada. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, forecasts that the 2003 fire season for May through September may not be as severe as it was in 2002, though much of the interior West, south central Alaska, parts of California, the western Great Lakes states and northern Maine could experience an difficult fire season.