Six Firefighters Hurt Driving to Alaska's Boundary Wildfire
Four firefighters were taken to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital by helicopter and two others were taken by ground transport, said fire information officer Miera Crawford. Fire manager initially said seven firefighters were hurt.
One of the injured was admitted to the hospital and five were discharged, Crawford said.
The rollover occurred at about 12:30 p.m. as a Small Unit Support Vehicle, a covered, tracked vehicle, traveled cross-country over hilly terrain to an assigned work area. The work area was in the southernmost part of the fire off somewhere off miles 20-25 Steese Highway, Crawford said.
The injured firefighters were part of a 20-person crew from the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests in Washington state, spokeswoman Robin DeMario said. Most injuries were minor, and none appeared to be life-threatening, she said.
The Boundary fire, covering 485,600 acres, is the agency's No. 2 priority. Containment was estimated at 20 percent and an evacuation directive remains in effect for the Haystack subdivision about a mile east of 10.5 Mile Elliott Highway and about 20 miles north of Fairbanks.
Firefighters spent Thursday doing burnouts and reinforcing a fire line along the western flank of the fire near the Haystack subdivision.
The controlled burning was slowed, as was growth of the fire, by light afternoon rain that fell for about two hours, Crawford said.
New fires continue to be the highest priority for firefighters attacking Interior Alaska forest blazes.
``If we can hit them hard and keep them small, they don't get away from us and become big fires,'' said fire information officer Gil Knight at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks.
As of Thursday afternoon, 11 new fires had been detected in the previous 24 hours. Half were blamed on lightning and half on humans, Knight said. Most were less than one acre.
The largest was a thousand-acre fire six miles west of Circle and 160 miles northeast of Fairbanks at the end of the Steese Highway. The fire, named Big Bluff, was moving away from the Yukon River community of about 100.
``It wasn't ripping,'' Knight said. ``It wasn't moving at a great rate of speed.''
The fire had been detected earlier from the air with infrared equipment but was not confirmed by a ground crew until smoke lifted. The fire was moving into an area that burned in 1991.
``We look at it as a good thing because it only has 13 years of fuel,'' Knight said.
Waiting to take on new fires are 15 initial attack crews, Knight said.
``That's in addition to whatever initial attack resources the regions might have,'' he said.
With up to 20 firefighters, the supplemental crews are hustled out by bus or other means when a report of a fire comes in. The initial attack crews carry few items for an extended stay, such as camping gear, but much of the regular firefighting equipment such as shovels and flappers, a device that resembles a rubber bath mat on a stick.
``You flop it, whop it, smack it,'' Knight said, suffocating flames.
Elsewhere, rain kept fire growth down throughout the Interior, he said.
``There's nothing on the board right now that indicates any major problems in the fires,'' Knight said.
Alaska this summer has had 492 fires, including 118 still active, that have burned more than 3.9 million acres, officials said.