Alaskan Fires Flare Up As Temperature Inversion Lifts
The Porcupine fire northeast of Tok made an active run along its northern flank after the inversion dissipated late Friday afternoon. Another flare-up occurred along the southern edge near the Taylor Highway.
``There's a lot of activity going on right now,'' fire information spokesman Brian Miller said Saturday afternoon. ``You can see nine columns of smoke from Tok.''
The clearing fanned the six-fire complex, but allowed water drops from helicopters that had been grounded because of dense smoke trapped under the inversion. Crews also built fire lines west of the Taylor Highway and north of the Tanana River to ward off the 198,000-acre Porcupine fire from a cabin and other structures near the Tetlin junction about three miles to the south.
The Taylor Highway remained open Saturday, but Miller urged motorists to limit travel between midnight and 10 a.m. when fires tend to calm under lower temperatures and higher humidity.
Also on Saturday, fire officials there announced two management teams were taking command of three fires each to create two separate entities, the Taylor and Chicken complexes.
Altogether, 102 fires were burning in Alaska Saturday - including 20 new fires reported Friday. Fifteen of the new fires were sparked by lightning, according to Bruce Palmer of the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center.
More than 3.3 million acres have burned in Alaska wildfires this summer, the state's third worst fire season on record, officials said.
Northeast of Fairbanks, an inversion that had hovered over the 160,000-acre Central Complex lifted late Saturday morning, fanning all seven fires, according to fire information spokesman Ted Pettis. Aerial crews flew over the complex to assess the degree of activity, but their report was not immediately available.
With thunderclouds forming, ground crews focused on protecting homes potentially threatened by a fire about three miles southwest of Circle and eight miles north of Central.
``They're moving hoses around homes in both communities and clearing brush, too,'' Pettis said.
To the north, the 546,000-acre Solstice Complex fires were quiet even though an inversion lifted and brought light winds, officials said. A layer of haze remained, but it was clear enough to allow helicopters to shuttle firefighters around. A boat also delivered supplies to crews in a remote part of the Pingo fire near the Chandalar River, said information officer Annie Larsen.
Crews focused much of their energy on reinforcing a fire line closer to Venetie about 3 1/2 miles from the Pingo fire, Larsen said.
The inversion had been expected to last several days, so when it lifted, fire managers pulled crews from a spot fire on the west side of the Christian River as a precaution against predicted winds.
``They decided it wasn't safe there,'' Larsen said. ``That made managers very nervous, so when they saw a window of opportunity, they took advantage of it. We're still expecting to be smoked in again.''
The weather around the 415,000-acre Boundary Fire northeast of Fairbanks was clear and sunny and warm - good burning conditions for black spruce, said Mike Richmond, fire weather program manager for the National Weather Service in Fairbanks.
A burnout operation to strengthen a fire line at the southwestern end sent up a 20,000-foot plume of smoke that was visible from Fairbanks.
``The fire is also actively burning in the northern end,'' said Richmond, who was monitoring the blaze Saturday.
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