Wildfires

A wildfire creeps toward a glacial river in Alaska on this window-seat view from a Boeing 737 flying from Fairbanks to Seattle on Aug. 6. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

Alaska Science Forum: Alaska’s weird fire season ain’t over yet

Waking to the smell of a wet ashtray (which, as a Child of the Seventies, I can still remember), I knew the wind had shifted.… Continue reading

 

This aerial photo provided by the Bureau of Land Management Alaska Fire Service shows a tundra fire burning near the community of St. Mary's, Alaska, on June 10, 2022. Alaska's remarkable wildfire season includes over 530 blazes that have burned an area more than three times the size of Rhode Island, with nearly all the impacts, including dangerous breathing conditions from smoke, attributed to fires started by lightning. (Ryan McPherson / Bureau of Land Management Alaska Fire Service)

Alaska experiencing wildfires it’s never seen before

Already more than 530 wildfires have burned an area the size of Connecticut.

 

A Forest Service fire crew gets brief during an operation. Fire crews from Alaska are frequently deployed to the Lower 48 to help combat wildfires that are growing larger and closer to urban areas in many cases. (Courtesy photo / Parker Anders)

Into the fire: Alaska’s wildlands firefighters eye coming dry season

Alaska’s wildlands firefighters lend a hand where needed nationwide.

 

Elizabeth Azzuz stands in prayer with a handmade torch of dried wormwood branches before leading a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021. Azzuz, who is Yurok, along with other native tribes in the U.S. West are making progress toward restoring their ancient practice of treating lands with fire, an act that could have meant jail a century ago. But state and federal agencies that long banned “cultural burns” are coming to terms with them and even collaborating as the wildfire crisis worsens. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

For tribes, ‘good fire’ a key to restoring nature and people

Working with fire, instead of against it.

Elizabeth Azzuz stands in prayer with a handmade torch of dried wormwood branches before leading a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021. Azzuz, who is Yurok, along with other native tribes in the U.S. West are making progress toward restoring their ancient practice of treating lands with fire, an act that could have meant jail a century ago. But state and federal agencies that long banned “cultural burns” are coming to terms with them and even collaborating as the wildfire crisis worsens. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A wildfire burnt nearly 16 acres of grass and woodlands near Crow Point before being extinguished by firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service on May 9, 2020.. (Courtesy photo | Brent Tingey)

Forest Service extinguish multi-acre Crow Point blaze

The investigation into the cause is ongoing.

A wildfire burnt nearly 16 acres of grass and woodlands near Crow Point before being extinguished by firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service on May 9, 2020.. (Courtesy photo | Brent Tingey)