Safford, AZ Night Sky Brightness
Safford, AZ: how dark is the sky here?
Satellite radiance puts Safford in the suburban edge band. A noticeable glow near the horizon. Brighter stars and constellations are easy to pick out; the Milky Way is washed out. That's brighter than 24.3% of the 3,206 US cities in this dataset.
This comes from a satellite measuring light radiating upward, not a person's eyes on the ground, so it isn't the same as a Bortle class, though the two track each other closely - see the Bortle scale guide for where they can disagree.
Where to go for a darker sky near Safford
Oro Valley, AZ, about 80 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the rural band, one step darker than Safford. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.
Oro Valley, AZ is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
How Safford compares nationally
Safford, AZ counts roughly 10,257 residents, among the 3,206 US cities this site tracks. Safford places 774 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order, ranked by the method in the methodology guide.