Alaska wildfires -- updates

June 24, 2015, 10:50 AM

Please note that when I am refering to inciweb incident pages, that I am linking to the current page, which changes as these inciweb pages are updated, so there may a discrepency with the acreage that I report in an article and that listed on Inciweb, the latest acreage on Inciweb will be the correct acreage.

Unfortunately, when I posted this on June 19th at both 10:15 AM and 4:20 PM, I probably failed to notice updates in acreage burned in the Chisana River 2 Fire, which as I write this update has burned 35,000 acres in the Wrangall-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, in a limited protection area. The latest information on this fire, which changes with each update, may be found on the Chisana River 2 Fire's incident page on Inciweb. I will make some more updates to this and the other wildfires in Alaska that I have been following here, in a little while.

June 19, 4:20 PM, EDT

Card Fire A little while ago I was on Inciweb and checked out their latest incident page on the Card Fire to find out that due to better mapping the current estimate of acreage burned is 7,578 acres. Both KTUU and KTVA have updated their reports to reflect the current estimate of 7,578 acres burned, both are stating that an official from the Alaska Division of Forestry provided an estimated acreage burned figure of 4,400 acres highers, perhaps in error.

No new updates on the Sockeye Fire, the Chisana River 2 Fire or the Tanana Slough Fire (Dot Lake) Fire.

June 19, 10:15 AM, EDT

I wrote about the Sockeye Fire (burning in Willow Alaska) on June 15 (with updates on June 16th and June 17th) and I wrote about the Card Fire burning near Sterling Alaska on the Kenai Pensulia on June 17th (along with the Tanana Slough Fire and the Chisana River 2 Fire). There are other wildfires currently burning in Alaska, I focus here on the ones that I have already written about. See Alaska Wildland Fire Information for information on these and other wildfires burning in Alaska

Wondering about the Airtankers from Canada and the United States working the wildfires in Alaska? Then you will want to see Bill Gabbert's reports on Fire Aviation. In a June 17th article Bill reports on Fire Aviation that Canada sent seven Air Tankers to Alaska with Alberta sending a Convair 580 and four CL-215Ts (scoopers) while British Columbia sent two Convair 580s. On June 18th, Bill reported in Fire Aviation that the three Air Tankers from the United States are in Alaska: RJ85 T-160 from Aero-Flite, BAe-146 T-10 from Neptune Aviation, and MD87 T-101 from Aero Air.

Card Fire

As I write this, the Card Fire both KTUU (with photos) and KTVA (with photos) (both are in Anchorage, Alaska) are reporting that the fire has burned 12,000 acres and is not contained. Evacuations are in places with reports that 11 structures have been burned. Firefighters on the ground have been aided by Airtanker and helicopters dropping on the fire. I have seen photos on both KTUU and KTVA of Neptune Aviations BAe-146 T-10 dropping on the fire and a helo and bucket. I expect that there are other tankers and helos working the fire.

Inciweb now has an incident page devoted to the Card Fire where as I write this the last update reports that the fire has burned 9,000 acres.


direct link to KTVA video on Youtube (published on June 17, 2015)


Sockeye Fire

Meanwhile the acreage burned by the Sockeye Fire has been reduced to 7,066 acres due to better mapping of the fire according to the latest update on Inciweb's incident page for the Sockeye Fire, the fire is at 5 percent containment. Also see reports on the Sockeye Fire from KTUU (with photos and a map) and KTVA (with photos and maps of the Sockeye Fire)

Chisana River 2 Fire in the Wrangaell-St.Elias National Park and Preserve has now burned 10,142 acres according to the latest report from Inciweb.

Finally, Alaska Wildland Fire Information reported on June 18th that the Tanana Slough Fire (Dot Lake has burned 718 acres and is 30 percent contained.