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State Fire Officials Monitoring Gweek Fire After Lightning Strikes

Alaska Interagency Coordination Center

State fire officials are monitoring a fire in the Gweek River area near Bethel. It was reported soon after a storm Thursday.

Alaska Division of Forestry spokesperson Tim Mowry says officials are monitoring a fire eight to ten miles north of Bethel. Airplanes sent to survey the fire found a 200-acre blaze slowly moving West. Mowry says lightning strikes during yesterday’s storm likely ignited the fire.

Mowry says no fish camps appear to be immediately threatened, but the fire is moving towards empty native allotments.

Firefighters have not been deployed to the Gweek fire due to a lack of resources and equipment.

According to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center website there are over 150 active wildfires in Alaska. This year 400 total fires have burned almost 200,000 acres throughout the state. Firefighters are currently responding to nine of those fires; one is in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta near Mountain Village.

Mowry says this situation is somewhat similar to an event last year when storms ignited over 300 wildfires around the state in five days.