High lightning activity starts new fires in Alaska

By BLM Alaska Fire Service on June 21, 2024

The number of fires in Alaska is increasing, as several waves of thunderstorms with high lightning activity have been moving across the state in recent days. There were 74 active wildfires as of 4 p.m. on Friday with 10 new starts in the past 24 hours. While lightning often ignites wildfires immediately, some fires, called holdovers or sleepers, don’t appear for days. These fires can smolder below the surface until temperatures warm, vegetation dries, and wind breathes life into the smoldering hot spot.

Most of the new fires are burning in remote parts of Alaska and in limited management option areas. They are not immediately threatening people or valuable sites and are in monitor status.

Smokejumpers are in route to new starts within the BLM Alaska Fire Service protection area covering the northern half of the state. The majority of aviation resources were in the air at 4pm on Friday, responding to lightning strikes in the Galena Zone and the southwest area near McGrath.

A smoke column rises up from a blackened burned patch of tundra. — Four single-engine water scoopers called Fire Boss airplanes dropped water retrieved out of the nearby Minto Lakes. Here’s a before and after photo of showing the effectiveness of the water scoopers. Photo by Ryan McPherson, BLM AFS

A black, burned patch of ground with a strip of charred trees in the middle. — Four single-engine water scoopers called Fire Boss airplanes dropped water retrieved out of the nearby Minto Lakes. Here’s a before and after photo of showing the effectiveness of the water scoopers. Photo by Ryan McPherson, BLM AFS

On Thursday, eight smokejumpers and four single-engine water scoopers were able to stop the Starvation Fire (#195) from spreading beyond an estimated 10 acres. The smokejumpers are continuing to secure the edge to keep the fire from growing. It is burning in tundra with pockets of black spruce, approximately 5 miles north of Elliott Highway milepost 102.

On Wednesday afternoon, eight smokejumpers and two single-engine water scoopers responded to the Checkerman Fire (#189), burning 11 miles west of the Dalton and Elliott highways intersection north of Fairbanks. Burning in tundra and black spruce within 5 miles of a cabin, the fire was contained at 17 acres with the quick help of the aircraft. The smokejumpers remained on-site to monitor and mop up the fire and returned to Fairbanks Thursday night.

Smokejumpers contained and controlled the 29-acre Garland Fire (#180) and the 5-acre Rabbit Fire (#181), both near Ambler, and demobilized on Thursday. These lightning-caused fires started on Tuesday.

As of Friday at 4 p.m., 183 fires have burned nearly 83,355 acres in Alaska, with almost half of that area in the McDonald Fire southeast of Fairbanks, at approximately 42,000 acres.

-BLM-

Bureau of Land Management, Alaska Fire Service, P.O. Box 35005 1541 Gaffney Road, Fort Wainwright, Ak 99703

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The Bureau of Land Management Alaska Fire Service (AFS) located at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, provides wildland fire suppression services for over 240 million acres of Department of the Interior and Native Corporation Lands in Alaska. In addition, AFS has other statewide responsibilities that include: interpretation of fire management policy; oversight of the BLM Alaska Aviation program; fuels management projects; and operating and maintaining advanced communication and computer systems such as the Alaska Lightning Detection System. AFS also maintains a National Incident Support Cache with a $18.1 million inventory. The Alaska Fire Service provides wildland fire suppression services for America’s “Last Frontier” on an interagency basis with the State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources, USDA Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Military in Alaska.