Update at 8 p.m., Sunday. – Four water-scooping Fire Boss aircraft are helping firefighters on the ground make good progress in efforts to suppress this fire burning mostly in tundra and caribou moss. Firefighters are working to get hose around the fire to help cool down the edges.

This is the last update for Sunday.

6 p.m. information – Firefighters and aircraft are battling a new wildfire about 3 miles northwest of Venetie in northeastern Alaska. The T’eedriinjik Fire (#380), estimated at 40 acres, involves 12 smokejumpers, two Fire Boss airplanes, four BLM Alaska Fire Service specialists, a helicopter, and a firefighter coordinating efforts from an airplane Sunday afternoon. While the fire is not currently threatening any structures, numerous Native allotments are nearby.

Reported around 3:15 p.m. by Venetie residents, the fire is burning through tundra (edited to correct fuel type) with some isolated torching and spotting a short distance ahead of the main fire. It is located on Indigenous lands just north of the Teedrinjik River (formerly Chandalar River). The cause is undetermined, and more information will be released as it becomes available.

-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.

Categories: Active Wildland Fire, AK Fire Info, BLM Alaska Fire Service