This year’s fire season started slowly due to cool and rainy weather, but it roared to life last week with near-record heat and Red Flag warnings in effect around the Interior and elsewhere in the state.
“As of [June 16], we've had 13 new fires in the last 24 hours statewide, and 118 fires have burned 3,100 acres,” said Beth Ipsen, an Alaska Fire Service spokesperson.
On June 16, Ipsen said that thunderstorms forecast for much of the Interior this week likely won’t bring much rain. Instead, the agency is bracing for more fires.
“We could get some dry lightning later on in the week, kind of in the northern, central, eastern part of the state,” Ipsen said.
More than a thousand lightning strikes were recorded statewide on June 15 and again on June 16, she added. Those likely sparked the state’s newest wildfire, called the Bridge Fire, that as of June 16 had burned about 20 acres in black spruce east of milepost 54 on the Elliott Highway.
The Alaska Fire Service dispatched eight smokejumpers to the wildfire, along with two water-scooping aircraft, a helicopter, and an fire-retardant air tanker. It also sent resources to the 50-acre Bachelor Fire north of the Steese Highway, and to another 20-acre fire in Western Alaska.
“We had two more starts today, one off the Steese Highway about 5 miles north of milepost 86, and it was 20 acres," Ipsen said on June 16. "So we've got eight smoke jumpers working on that fire.”
Ipsen said that more personnel and equipment are on the way to Alaska to help fight a potential outbreak of lightning-caused wildfires.
“So within the next couple days, we'll have 32 additional smoke jumpers up here helping out,” Ipsen said. “We are also getting additional water scoopers in the next few days. And as this forecast of hot, dry lightning continues, predicted through the weekend, we are looking to get even more resources to help out.”
The state’s biggest blaze is the Oskawalik Fire, located in Southwest Alaska along the Kuskokwim River just south of Crooked Creek. Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection Spokesperson Sam Harrel said that it’s burned about 1,500 acres and is only about 5% contained.
“There's about 80 firefighters assigned as of [June 16],” Harrel said. “We're expecting another crew of firefighters to arrive, but not sure when we'll get them there.”
Harrel said that the Alaska Department of Forestry and Fire Protection dispatched two crews of smokejumpers to the high-priority fire on June 14, but one was redeployed to McGrath in anticipation of more lightning-caused fires in the region.
“This is a full suppression area. This is a full suppression fire,” Harrel said. “It's 10 miles south of the village of Crooked Creek. There Is a Native allotment right there at the confluence of the Kuskokwim and Oscowalik River.”
Harrel said that the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Warning for the region on June 16. There also are Red Flag warnings in effect throughout the eastern and central Interior, along with a heat advisory for Fairbanks and areas east and west of the city.
“Right now, we're extremely dry in the Interior,” Harrel said. “Burn permits are suspended in Fairbanks, Delta, and Tok, just due to these very warm and very dry conditions that we're experiencing. People really need to be careful, because it's gonna be very easy to spark a new fire.”
Those conditions are unlikely to improve much until rain sets in around the Interior. The weather service forecasts a 60% chance of precipitation around Healy on June 17, but only a slim chance of rain elsewhere around the eastern Interior.
