Randi Jandt, a fire ecologist with the federally funded Alaska Fire Science Consortium, resists the term “year-round fire season” because Alaska and other places still have months with snow cover. She has adopted an alternative that she said reflects the more intense nature of recent fires.

“I’m worried about a runaway fire season,” Ms. Jandt said. The term captures the idea that dry conditions could lead to fires that simply burn out of control, she explained, as some almost did last summer, Alaska’s second-largest fire season on record, after 2004.

The issue has led to disagreements among many fire ecologists about how best to attack the problem. Some argue that fires should be left to take their natural course and clear out the thick, dry brush on the forest floor. But that approach has run into a challenge: More and more people are moving into wild lands.

Retirees and urbanites seeking more pastoral settings are pushing farther into places that firefighters must now protect. And these modern-day settlers have been supported by municipalities looking to expand their tax bases, and by technology that lets people live and work anywhere they can get an Internet connection, said Ray Rasker, the executive director of Headwaters Economics, a research organization that provides consulting services to communities and governments on fire prevention.

“It’s a wonderful new world, where I can live anywhere I want,” Mr. Rasker said, echoing an opinion he said he had often heard. “I want to live in the woods, but the woods are now flammable, much more flammable than they used to be.”