ANCHORAGE (AP) -- This year's wildfire season in Alaska is blazing toward the record books, less than 52,000 acres short of being the third-worst season since 1950, fire managers said Thursday.
Fanned by a long stretch of dry hot weather, fires throughout the state have burned 3,173,218 acres, said fire information spokesman Chris Rogers.
The third-worst fire season occurred in 1990 when 3,189,079 acres burned, he said.
The worst season on record occurred in 1957, when more than 5 million acres burned.
``That was a huge fire year, before infrared imaging was used for mapping fires,'' Rogers said. ``Then, fire crews used local landmarks when they did flyovers.''
The second-worst year was 1969, with about 4.2 million acres blackened.
This season, crews across Alaska have stayed busy battling seven fires 100,000 acres or larger, as well as dozens of smaller fires. The largest fires were among 75 blazes burning in the state Thursday.
The Boundary fire - about half the size of Rhode Island at 379,450 acres - remained a top priority as it continued to slowly spread to within 15 miles north of Fairbanks. Crews were focusing on structure protection in the southern areas, even though the blaze was more active in the north and east flanks, according to fire information spokesman Bert Plante.
``It's mostly backcountry there,'' he said. ``That's a low priority part of the fire because it's in the middle of nowhere.''
Dense smoke has hampered efforts to get a full aerial view of the area. On Tuesday, however, a pilotless plane being tested this summer by the Coast Guard was deployed to fly over the fire, transmitting real-time infrared video images to fire managers. The unmanned aerial vehicle also flew over other Interior fires last week, officials said.
The Altair, an extended wing commercial version of the Air Force Predator B, zoomed in on areas off limits to human pilots, said Pete Buist, a spokesman for the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center.
``It's like video games for big people,'' Buist said. ``We can make some fairly good estimations by looking at this video. It told us that a part of the fire we suspected was kicking up was doing so indeed. It told us where the eastern extent of the fire was. It let us make a better estimation of where action is needed and if it's safe to put people and equipment there.''
Northeast of Fairbanks, firefighters turned their attention to the towns of Circle and Central - hoping the Crazy fire doesn't live up to its name.
The blaze, part of the 160,000-acre Central complex of fires, grew swiftly earlier this week, racing eastward from its point of origin west of Circle and running into the Steese Highway about halfway down the 33-mile stretch of road between Central and Circle.
Fire officials estimated the blaze was about 10 to 12 miles away from Central and two to four miles from Circle, but within one mile of outlying homes southwest of Circle.
The fire was lying low under an inversion layer Thursday, giving fire crews a chance to focus on clearing dozer lines around Central after completing work in Circle on Wednesday, according to fire information spokesman Ted Pettis.
``We've had some sprinkles this afternoon and it's quite a bit cooler and more humid,'' he said. ``There have been some individual tree torches but overall the fire is moving fairly slow.''
In case conditions worsen, fire managers have developed evacuation plans for the communities and planned to meet with Circle residents Thursday night and Central residents Friday, Pettis said.
While the seven-fire Central complex was relatively calm Thursday, fire officials said the fires could flare up when the inversion lifts.
Stan Gelvin of Central said the blaze is already the biggest fire he'd seen so close to Circle in 50 years. But Gelvin found the thick blanket of smoke was affecting him more than the nearby flames.
``It's been like this for 10 days,'' he said. ``It's getting on my nerves.''
To the east near the Canada border, an inversion also was calming the 751,580-acre Taylor complex fire. Crews were focusing on completing a dozer line near the Taylor Highway, said fire information spokesman Kevin Koechlein.
``It's pretty quiet today with this inversion layer,'' he said. ``It's slowed the fire behavior. But it also holds all the heat in, so our concern is that once the inversion lifts, the fire could take off real suddenly.''
