Wildfire activity ramped over the weekend due to hot dry conditions and numerous lightning strikes, including over 6,500 Sunday.
“Sunday is definitely our largest amount of lightning for one day this season,” said Sam Harrel, a spokesman for the Alaska Division of Forestry.
Harrel said even prior to Sunday’s lighting, earlier strikes resulted in numerous starts.
“Forty new fires, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” he said.
The new fires were spread across a wide area of the state, from Southwest to the Kenai, Mat-Su and Interior. Among new fires responded to was a 1-acre blaze near the Willow Airport that was hit Sunday night with water and retardant.
“Retardant tanker and air attack responded from Fairbanks, and the tanker was able to make multiple drops with one load of retardant to encircle the fire with retardant, and that allows ground forces to get into place and start to encircle the fire’s edge,” Harrel said.
More forecast hot weather and lightning combined with increasingly dry duff layers has elevated wildfire potential. Harrel said additional firefighters are due from the Lower 48 starting Monday.
“There are three hotshot crews on that flight. On Wednesday, we are expecting another jet load with three hotshot crews on it,” Harrel said.
More firefighting aircraft are also coming from outside, according to Alaska Fire Service information officer Joan Kluwe.
“Water scooping planes and air tankers. There’s also a variety of helicopters,” Kluwe said.
Kluwe said the fire service was working seven fires as of Sunday night, including the McDonald Fire south of Fairbanks where efforts continue to protect cabins on the blaze’s south side.
“They did burnout operations on the west side of those cabins, and then they are also working on creating a contingency line on the east side,” she said.
Meanwhile, Kluwe said a new lightning-caused fire north of the McDonald Fire is also burning on military training grounds. She says the Clear Fire is in an area where there’s unexploded ordnance, which is restricting firefighters to point protection for threatened military assets.
There are over 100 active wildfires burning in the state.
Dan Bross is a reporter at KUAC in Fairbanks.
