Alaska surpasses 2M acres burned

There are an estimated 482 personnel battling 10 staffed fires.
Published: Jul. 4, 2022 at 4:21 PM AKDT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Alaska has officially surpassed 2 million acres burned in wildfires already this season.

According to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center Wildland Fire dashboard, 2,318,064 acres have burned in 426 total fires. There are currently 26 new fires and 209 are active across the state. There are an estimated 482 personnel battling 10 staffed fires.

“While this doesn’t guarantee a record fire season this year, it does illustrate how dry conditions are across the state,” the Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska Fire Service wrote in a blog post. “It’s also an indicator of how busy firefighters have been so far this season with several months still left to go.”

The Lime Complex of fires in Southwest Alaska includes eight staffed fires and 10 fires that are unstaffed, all of which were caused by lightning. The total size of the combined fires is 778,877 acres.

The last time Alaska reached 2 million acres burned on July 2, 2015,” the fire service wrote. “More than 5.1 million acres burned across the state during that fire season, the second highest total for acres burned in the past 20 years. For the entire 2019 fire season, Alaska saw about 2.6 million acres burned.”

The National Weather Service listed the entire Interior region in Red Flag Warnings, and much of Southwest Alaska is under an Air Quality Advisory, while above-normal temperatures are expected for Southeast Alaska.

The Clear Fire has prompted evacuation notice of “set” for the communities of Anderson and Clear. All areas along Kobe Road and cabins on the Teklanika River within two miles of the fire perimeter have been issued “go” evacuation notices.

Additional information on specific fires can be found at akfireinfo.com.

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