Alask Fire Danger

I was in Kasilof yesterday and the smoke was burning the eyes and lungs. This morning I woke with a slight headache and sinus pressure.
Hope this is not what our summer is going to be like. We have been fairly clear here in Nikiski so we are staying here for the Holiday. Fire at 45,000 plus acres and there is talk that planes are coming to start knocking it down. It probably needs to burn to clean up the forest but the people and wild life will suffer. Moose calves are being dropped right now, saw several already, not very steady on their feet. The fire went from 0 to 45,000 acres in about 3 days, approx. 60+ square miles, not sure if wildlife could escape this. Any one coming down for the next few days may want to check the conditions first.

Hook

An alternate approach is to come up in late summer and stay through the early fall. Better, IMNSHO, scenery, fewer bugs, cooler weather, much less likelihood of smoky drives.

"....where flying our planes was just not much fun, due to the smoke and poor visibility." I've gotten to the point where I really don't like flying in the interior (or wherever) when there's active fires. Not only is it unpleasant and a PITA, but quite a bit of time there's little to no NOTAM or other warning of air operations in some of the more remote fires and going around the potential air operating area is a looonngg trip in a slow -12.

EEEEEH, our first trip to Alaska was in 2009 and we saw few mountains and lots of smoke. We are about to jump off and go back, but we will monitor the fire status not for safety but just because its unpleasant. Its a big place and if mother nature says eeeh, need to go in a different direction.

pops

Summer time forest fires are just a part of life in the north country. Doubt there has ever been a summer without some major fires. I have seen the Fairbanks area so smoke filled that it is hard to breath. In 2009, I believe it was, there was a big fire over north of Tok, around Chicken, that burned most of the summer or it hit a river too big to jump.

About all a visitor can do is go somewhere else for a few weeks, such as to Valdez, normally smoke free. SE Alaska doesn't burn with the large fires as it is a northern rain forest, just too wet.

There were summers, when we were living in the Interior of the state, where flying our planes was just not much fun, due to the smoke and poor visibility. The smoke also put enough particles into the air to allow more clouds to form and more lightening to occur starting new fires. There are a few man caused ones but most are the result of lightening strikes.

Most of the Interior of Alaska qualifies as a northern desert, receiving about 11 inches of water per year. Most of that, comes with the fall rains, which turn into the winter snows about the first week of October. But with much of the land, underlain with permafrost, 11 inches just goes a long ways to making any flat area swampy. However the vegetation does get very dry, for much of the summer. Anywhere there is no permafrost, the water soaks in or runs off if there is any elevation involved.
As mentioned above, just keep a check on the fires, along with the weather and you will normally smell the smoke long before you can see it.

4 damp days ahead in Whitehorse, and fresh snow on the mountains around us as of this morning when it hit 37F.

Whitehorse area was dry until it started raining a couple of days ago. Dawson City had an extreme fire rating, as did the Mayo and Carmacks areas.

With the rain, Dawson City now has a moderate rating, while the rest of Yukon is rated low.

http://www.community.gov.yk.ca/firemanagement/current.html

I live just outside of Homer and I can see the smoke from here. The wind here is gusty again today. Clear, blue and DRY.

*sigh* My childhood home. A friend who still lives there just told me it's moving east and south away from civilization, but things are very dry. No moisture in the last two months. Hope it doesn't get his place since that's where I'm headed to camp this summer.