Crews contain wildfire north of Willow

UPDATE (9:17 p.m. Sunday) -- On Sunday night, State Forestry officials issued the following update on the Sheep Creek Fire:

Crews have made good progress on the Sheep Creek Fire, a 22-acre wildfire burning near Mile 91 of the Parks Highway that ignited Saturday afternoon.

The perimeter of the fire did not grow on Sunday, though there is still heat within the interior of the fire. Eight members of the Gannett Glacier Type 2 Initial Attack Crew are working on the fire while the remainder of the crew was re-directed to the Horseshoe Lake Fire near Big Lake. Water tenders from local fire departments from Willow and Caswell are helping to supply water for the crew.

The two fires that erupted in the past two days in the Mat-Su Valley and one on Kodiak Island that blew up on Thursday night illustrate how dry and volatile conditions are currently in Southcentral Alaska. Hunters and recreationalists heading into the woods to take advantage of the last days of summer are reminded to be extremely careful with anything that could cause a wildfire, such as campfires and the use of all-terrain vehicles. Many of Alaska's firefighting resources are currently helping with the firefighting effort in the Lower 48 and resources remaining in Alaska are minimal. Please don't make more work for firefighters who have already endured a long, hard season.

Original story (posted Saturday night):

CASWELL -- Firefighters pounced on a wildfire Saturday evening, quickly bringing a 35-acre blaze burning in a mix of tundra and black spruce north of Willow under control before it threatened any homes or structures.

Incident commander John Glover with the Alaska Division of Forestry said Saturday night that winds were nudging the Sheep Creek Fire further away from the Parks Highway and into open country.

“That’s very favorable for the residences around here,” he said.

News of the fire spread fast among the close-knit residents of the area near Caswell, which is just a few miles north of where the Sockeye Fire burned 7,200 acres of forest and destroyed 55 homes earlier this summer. Sitting in the crowded Sheep Creek Lodge Saturday night, Cindy Boyd and Greg Tartisel of Anchorage recalled seeing the fire begin to flare up near their vacation cabin earlier that afternoon.

“We were watching it from our roof,” Boyd said.

The fire was first reported between 5 and 6 p.m., Glover said. He said the cause is unknown.

The first sign anything was amiss came from the sound of a plane circling directly overhead their cabin, which the couple visits “as often as we can,” Boyd said.

“He went over the cabin about a dozen times,” Boyd said between bites of a basket of crispy fish and chips she and Tartisel shared inside the rustic wooden lodge alongside the Parks Highway.

The vibe inside the lodge -- which still features a table covered in fundraising t-shirts for the summer's earlier fire -- was relaxed as word spread that fire crews had a handle on the blaze and locals began to unwind to the bluesy sound of live music courtesy of Gary “Alaska” Sloan and the Duo Sonics. But that wasn’t the case at around 6 p.m. when the fear of another devastating wildfire was racing through everyone’s mind.

“I was starting to freak out a little bit,” Boyd recalled.

The couple said they monitored the fire from their cabin and were relieved to see fire crews attacking the area with a vengeance. Glover said about 25 firefighters from State Forestry as well as Talkeetna, Willow and the Mat-Su Borough were actively fighting the fire. He said crews will likely be on hand for a couple days to mop up the blaze, which scorched an area roughly the size of about 25 to 30 football fields.

“It’s big enough and large enough and burning hot enough that it’s going to take a few days to get this thing put out and fully extinguished,” he said.

Crews laid down more than 3,000 feet of hose along a power line easement to reach the fire, which was smoldering in the ground but not sending any flames skyward Saturday evening. Firefighters used hoses to knock down hot spots while others chopped trees and charred bushes with hand tools. The mood was serious but upbeat as firefighters seemed confident they’d got a handle on the blaze in time to keep if from spreading into the treetops. That’s what happened with the Sockeye Fire, which left massive swaths of spindly burned black spruce in its wake.

Glover said the fire was located almost a mile east of the highway, which initially hampered efforts to get water to the location.

“It’s a fair ways off the road system with not a lot of water nearby so that’s been kind of the challenge is getting water out to the fire, but we are accomplishing that at this time and starting to make some progress on it,” he said.

Glover said crews would closely monitor the fire overnight in case the winds picked up. The forecast was for gusts up to 20 MPH, which he said was part of the reason crews responded so aggressively.

“It’s supposed to get gusty this evening, that’s why we’re trying to make a pretty good push on it right now,” he said.

Glover said he doesn't expect the fire will cause any interruptions to highway traffic or the Alaska Railroad, which has tracks about a half-mile from the fire.

"It shouldn't impact the railroad or the highway in any way," he said.

At the Sheep Creek Lodge, area residents seemed relieved – although also respectful of how quickly things can turn disastrous when it comes to wildfire.

“I’ll be getting up in the middle of the night just to check,” Tartisel said.

However, he and Boyd said they were confident the fire was in good hands and had no plans to evacuate their cabin.

“It’s a really cozy place,” Boyd said.

Contact Frontiersman editor Matt Tunseth at 352-2268 or matt.tunseth@frontiersman.com