FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - Texans and firefighters may get a break this winter and spring on the heels of a couple of massive wildfire seasons across the state, according to the Texas Forest Service.

Officials predict that more rain will lead to a below-normal wildfire threat across most of the state and a normal threat for the Panhandle and the area from Midland to Abilene.

“Most of our people are going to be home with their families this New Year holiday and not fighting fires,” said Nick Harrison, a Texas Forest Service spokesman. “But there’s always the potential for wildfires in Texas in the winter.”

He said agency officials are keeping an eye on the tall grasses, bushes and other vegetation that sprang up because of the rainy autumn, especially since some freezing conditions have dried it out. But he said it has posed no real hazard so far because of the above-normal rainfall over most of the state, thanks to the El Nino weather phenomenon.

This fall, National Weather Service officials predicted that El Nino, the periodic warming of the central Pacific Ocean, would bring a wetter, colder winter to Texas. They said it may help with the drought that has hurt the agricultural industry and been blamed for conditions that led to wildfires in recent years.

“We’ve had good moisture buildup in the past few months ... so we’re hoping that conditions stay the way they are and there won’t be an extreme winter fire season,” said Mike McGuire, the Texas Forest Service regional coordinator based in Granbury.

Officials expect this season to be similar to 2007, when wildfires scorched more than 162,000 acres across the state.

The worst season in recent years started in late 2005 and carried into 2006, when wildfires from the Panhandle to northern Texas left 19 people dead and burned more than 2 million acres, according to data from the Texas Forest Service. About 330 homes were burned in 2005 and 400 in 2006, according to the agency.

Since then 2008 was the worst for blazes, with more than 1.6 million acres and 250 homes burned. So far this year, fires killed four people and destroyed more than 700,000 acres and 400 homes.

Most of the wildfires earlier this year were in rural Montague County, where the small communities of Sunset and Stoneburg were all but destroyed. On April 9, high winds and temperatures coupled with low humidity caused Montague County blazes to spread nearly out of control, charring more than 60,000 acres and killing three people in a single day.

Tom Fenoglio, chief of the Montague Volunteer Fire Department, said most of the damage could have been prevented if residents had mowed tall grass, trimmed or removed trees close to houses and used bulldozers to create fire breaks.

He said he is cautiously optimistic about predictions for the winter and next spring. He said the county has more overgrown grass and shrubs than it did this spring, and that Texas weather can change quickly from a few rainy days to warm temperatures with low humidity - perfect fire conditions.

“We added two fire trucks and did more training with our firefighters,” Fenoglio said. “That may save more homes if we have a lot of wildfires. But it won’t make much difference if you have hurricane-force winds and no humidity, causing air support not to be available. That’s why we hope people will take preventative measures.”