Fire Season Winding Down

As we move toward the end of August, the 2010 wildfire season is winding down. After a very early and active start in May, the season slowed down markedly, and in spite of some warm and dry weather, especially over the central Interior, never really picked up steam again. As of August 19th, total acreage burned is at 1.07 million acres, with only a couple of fires in the Upper Yukon Valley, west of Fort Yukon, still reasonably active. While this is the 5th year in the past 10 with more than one million acres burned, this is less than half of last years total. Regrettably for Fairbanks, the Willow Creek fire, just southwest of town, continues to smolder and occasionally smoke up town. Unless and until there is a several day period of cool rainy weather, this may remain an irritant until the snow comes.