Fire Season Takes Off

The cold spring greatly retarded the fire season: as of Friday, May 31 only 665 acres had burned. That changed over the weekend, as the season roared to life: Monday morning Alaska Fire Service was calling 32,600 acres burned. Most of that was in Southwest Alaska, where the Doestock Creek fire, south of Aniak, was over 18000 acres. There were several staff fires southeast of Tok, with the Bitter Creek fire threatening to close the Alaska Highway. Here's the AFS plot of "active fires" from Tuesday early morning, bearing in mind that active means "not declared out" and that many of these are 0.1 acres or less. The lack of fires in the northern Interior reflects the lack of lightning thus far this season.