Firefighters made progress Tuesday as winds the crews feared would feed the blazes never materialized, temperatures cooled and rain doused hot spots, said Rick Barton, a spokesman for the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center.
Red flag warnings issued Monday were lifted everywhere in the Interior but Tanana Flats and Deltana by Tuesday afternoon.
``Without the winds, on most of the fires the crews are finding smoldering, creeping fire behavior. It allows them to get close and mop up,'' Barton said.
Firefighters even began rehabilitating the wettest spots near the Boundary and Wolf Creek fires, he said.
The rehabilitation includes channeling water to prevent erosion, reseeding bald spots with native grasses and returning brush and trees to areas cleared for fire breaks.
``Now we are going to put it back in there to make it look natural,'' Barton said.
At other fires, crews were ``mopping up,'' combing through a perimeter up to 500 feet and snuffing anything hot, Barton said.
There was some new fire activity, Barton said. Lightning strikes started six new fires Monday. Smokejumpers were sent to protect structures in the Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge, as a 45,000-acre fire burned nearby. The southwest corner of the Evansville fire kicked up, causing smokejumpers to be sent Monday night and Tuesday morning, he said.
But the weather quieted fires in the rest of the state, and should help fire crews over the next several days.
Two low-pressure systems moving in from the Bering Sea were expected to bring rain and cooler temperatures to the Interior, according to the National Weather Service.
Mike Richmond, a meteorologist and Fairbanks' fire weather program manager, said the Boundary fire should get the most rainfall. The Taylor, Eagle and Chicken fires should also be affected, he said.
``With this pattern, we might start to dry out by Monday or Tuesday,'' Richmond said.
This year, fires have burned 4.45 million acres in Alaska, making it the second-largest fire season since the state began tracking. There were 120 active fires on Tuesday and 35 structures, mostly cabins and secondary homes, had been destroyed.
There are 2,042 people working on Alaska fires, according to the Interagency Coordination Center.
Related:
