A late season fire bust has state and federal response agencies scrambling across the interior.
A few hot dry days paired with over 25 thousand lightning strikes and Alaska is on fire.
“Produced over 80 new fires around the state,” said Division of Forestry spokesman Tim Mowry.
Mowry said what had been a wimpy fire season is now looking eerily similar to last summer, when abundant lightning sparked blazes that charred over 5 million acres. This year’s bust comes as state and federal fire fighting agencies were preparing to ramp down, sending 2 water scooping plane to the lower 48 and making crews available to work there. Mowry said agencies have scrambled resources to respond.
”It is a big juggling act for fire managers,” Mowry said. “We have a limited supply of initial attack resources. That’s what gets really difficult when we have this much fire on the landscape. To prioritize which fires are posing a threat to life and safety.”
Two such fires, one near the Salcha River south of Fairbanks, and another near Tok were hit hard by fire crews on the ground and by aerial water and retardant drops late Thursday. Numerous other blazes started by lightning, especially in southwest Alaska and in the Galena zone, are in remote areas and being allowed to burn. The forecast calls for cooling and increased chance of precipitation beginning over the weekend, but Mowry said if the weather doesn’t come through large fires could develop and pose a smoke threat.
”That’s always a concern. I mean, some of these fires yesterday and some of the more remote areas did blow up yesterday as expected in this hot, dry weather,” Mowry said. “And then it sort of is a matter of which way the wind is blowing. I got a call from a woman in Central who said they were prety sucked in with smoke.”
Mowry said fire mangers plan to take advantage of any break in the weather to get on top of problem fires.
Dan Bross is a reporter at KUAC in Fairbanks.
