Careful with those burn piles: fire season is here

WASILLA — Fire season is in full swing right now, with burning periodically banned and fire crews scrambling to put out fires.

Cooler temperatures Saturday lifted a burn ban put in place Friday. But, from now until probably July, fire officials are warning residents to be careful with fire.

“We only had one little fire this morning, but this week things are definitely picking up,” Norm McDonald, who oversees fire operations for forestry, said Friday afternoon. “We had three fires yesterday and four the day before.”

Meanwhile, the Mat-Su Borough issued an air quality warning Friday afternoon that was still in effect a day later. According to the borough, high winds had degraded the air to the point where children, the elderly, and people with heart and lung disease were advised to stay indoors and reduce physical activity. To check on the status of the advisory, call the 24-hour hotline at 352-3878.

Forestry has two helicopters and a tanker on hand this year. The choppers can carry water-dumping buckets and one actually has an onboard tank. McDonald said that forestry’s standard response to a wildfire is to send two fire engines and the helicopter.

“Our goal is to get a lot of stuff there in a hurry,” he said.

And, so far at least, it’s worked out well.

“So far we’ve had really quick responses from both the cooperators and our own operators and equipment,” McDonald said. “Usually, if we get one fire we’re OK and two we’re OK and then you get that third or fourth and your resources get a little thin.”

Another factor that makes it tough — Forestry resources tend to deploy statewide. If a big fire starts somewhere else in the state, Palmer’s crews and apparatus are usually dispatched outside the area.

As of Saturday afternoon, Forestry’s Mat-Su/Anchorage region has responded to 25 fires. Total, 5.3 acres had burned. That’s a tiny sliver of the state’s overall 145.8 burn acres, but just under a third of all the state’s fires.

Obviously, Mat-Su fires are smaller than fires in the Interior. But they tend to threaten more homes. As is usually the case, Butte and the Point MacKenzie area were the first to experience out-of-control fires.

There have been some small fires in Anchorage, but most of those 25 in the Anchorage/Mat-Su area were in the Valley. And unlike in the unpopulated Interior where lightning is often the cause, all of the Valley’s fires thus far have been human-caused.

“Every fire we’ve had so far this spring has been human-caused for the Mat-Su Valley,” McDonald said Friday. “Like today for example we suspended all open burning with the red flag that, but we’re still getting people that are unaware of that.”

Anyone who wants to set any kind of fire bigger than a campfire needs to get a burn permit. They’re available online at forestry.alaska.gov/burn.

Also, before you start a fire you need to check to make sure burning isn’t suspended due to a red flag warning or some other reason. The number to call is 761-6312.

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