Thunderstorms Thursday afternoon started a dozen new fires in the Interior heading into Friday’s summer solstice, including a wildfire northeast of Fairbanks that triggered an evacuation.
In addition to evacuating parts of the Gilmore Trail neighborhood, the Fairbanks North Star Borough notification system issued other evacuation preparation warnings during the night.
Some fires, like the Lake George Fire east of Delta Junction, were small — less than an acre — and crept through spruce and hardwoods far from structures. Others were larger like the Twelvemile Lake Fire, also east of Delta, which got to 100 acres Thursday night burning in black spruce and brush. Fire crews were also monitoring the Ninetyeight Fire, which had grown to 300 acres Thursday night in a remote part of the Donnelly Training Area north of the Salcha River.
But it is the biggest ones that are pulling on the resources of the federal Alaska Fire Service and the state Alaska Division of Forestry. Forestry spokesperson Sam Harrell said people and equipment are being prioritized to protect life and property among the emerging incidents.
“Every fire wants every resource you have,” Harrel said. “But we only have so many airplanes, so many firefighters and so much ground to move everything around.”
For example, the Gilmore Creek Trail fire on the northeast side of Fairbanks received a lot of resources.
“The Gilmore Trail was a very important fire because of the proximity to all the folks that live on that hillside up there and the potential for fire to move quickly in that area,” Harrel said.
Harrell said that’s why evacuation orders are carefully calculated, and people in harm’s way are given as much warning as possible, in case firefighting equipment can’t get there fast enough.
“Everybody needs and wants to be protected, but it's a scale in numbers and it's very challenging,” he said.
Fires still burning Friday include the Bear Creek Fire near Healy, which started near the Parks Highway at Mile 262. Dog teams, multiple cabins and structures were within 3 miles of the fire Thursday night, so water scoopers and air tankers were ordered, and a fire crew from Anderson went to the scene.
Farther up the Parks is a larger fire on the hillside near the Bonanza Creek area at Mile 332. On Thursday night it was 350 acres and burning in continuous black spruce and hardwoods.
The nearby Skinny Dick's lodge is being used for equipment staging. That could mean travelers coming to Fairbanks for solstice weekend should watch for emergency vehicles, fire crews and heavy equipment in the area.