The 1,779 acre Oskawalik Fire (#122), 9 miles south of Crooked Creek along the Kuskokwim River, exhibited very little growth over the past 24 hours allowing fire crews the opportunity to increase containment to 35%.
This morning, as containment efforts were met over the past few days and the fire complexity has been reduced, the current Type 3 organization managing the fire will turn the fire over to a Type 4 incident commander. The transfer of command will allow a smaller contingency of firefighters and fire managers to stay on scene will freeing up vital resources to be reassigned to other, more active fires across the Interior.
Today, the 70 firefighters assigned to the incident will continue to utilize a full suppression strategy while improving the containment lines that have successfully been constructed around the perimeter of the fire. As crews secure the fire line with hose lays, they will begin to utilize those hose lays to conduct mop up operations using water and hand tools as they look for any residual heat that may pose a threat to containment lines.
Smoke from the fire area may still be visible to the residents of Crooked River and people using the Kuskokwim River, but at this time, the fire poses no threat to the public or structures near the fire.
Categories: Active Wildland Fire, AK Fire Info, Alaska DNR - Division of Forestry (DOF)
Alaska Wildland Fire Information 