Bizarre winter fire season tapering off

PALMER — With winds subsiding, things seem to calming down around the fire halls of the Valley, but officials are still keeping a wary eye on dry grass.

“It’s sort of returned to normal. People are a little bit more aware of any type of controlled burn, but right now a controlled burn is not illegal as long as folks are burning within the parameters of the criteria that have to be established when you have a permit,” Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele said.

Those rules include how to construct a proper burn barrel and keeping water on hand. They’re available at forestry.alaska.gov/burn.

But while burning is not banned at present, Steele said he would urge extreme caution.

“It is still extremely dry in our areas at least,” Steele said. “Follow the rules because if the fire gets onto another person’s property, then whoever is burning is responsible for any damage that occurs on that other person’s property.”

Over at the Division of Forestry in Palmer, Mat-Su Fire Officer Norm McDonald said Thursday that the past couple of days were much slower paced than previous days when the wind was gusting to 80 mph.

“It’s been actually very nice. Things have slowed down,” he said.

There was a five-acre fire on Palmer Fishhook on Tuesday, but since then there hasn’t been anything except what the division calls “nuisance calls” in which neighbors are worried someone nearby isn’t burning safely and is thus creating a nuisance.

“Just burn barrels burning and people not attending their piles,” McDonald said.

He said he’s not surprised that people are burning piles of brush this time of year.

“It’s actually fairly common. A lot of people like to do it with snow on the ground,” McDonald said. “Under most circumstances it’s a good time to burn.”

But this winter hasn’t conformed to “normal circumstances.” Forestry has had to add staff at a time when it’s usually operating with a skeleton crew. The division actually had to call in crews from Fairbanks to help out.

But so far, McDonald said, none of the fires has been so egregious that the division will seek restitution.

Down power lines or burns that were otherwise safe, but still escaped sparked most of the wildfires.

The biggest fire, the 100-plus-acre blaze that threatened homes in the Cedar Hills subdivision just north of Palmer Nov. 29, was a freak occurrence, he said.

“That was just high winds blew a trailer over, causing sparks,” McDonald said. “That’s not negligent. That’s just bad luck with the weather.”

He said the fire up on Palmer-Fishhook on Tuesday resulted in a warning being issued to a person whose burn barrel got away from him. McDonald said the barrel didn’t have a screen over it and there wasn’t enough defensible space around it. But that warning will stay a warning unless it comes to light that the guy was warned previously.

“Depending on the history of that person, we may or may not go after a cost recovery,” McDonald said.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.