Mat-Su, Tyonek fires keep crews hopping

PALMER — Fire crews were stretched thin over the weekend and into Monday in Mat-Su, responding to about a half-dozen wildfires.

The state’s Division of Forestry’s Mat-Su Fire Management Officer Norm McDonald urged Mat-Su to be careful with fire.

“Burn permits are still suspended,” he said Monday evening. “The wind is the primary thing right now… and it’s just really dry conditions and we’re supposed to get possible a little clouds here in the next few days but not a lot of moisture so I think we’re kind of in it for the long haul now.”

He said Forestry responded to six fires spread between Knik River Road and Talkeetna on Monday.

And if that weren’t enough, Alaska Division of Forestry crews as of Monday evening were en route to Tyonek across Cook Inlet where a 10-acre fire was threatening the village. Forestry was sending an air tanker over there as well as teams of smokejumpers and hotshot firefighters.

McDonald said the division was throwing everything it had at the Tyonek fire.

“Pretty much. We’ll have one crew left here and some engines,” he said.

Reports of fire activity from the weekend included:

• Mop-up on the McRoberts Creek fire, which starting burning Wednesday when a campfire got out of control off of the Plumley-Maud ATV trail in Butte. Forestry said that it had not grown in that time but crews were out looking for hot spots. They anticipated being done with the fire by the end of the day.

• An ATV that caught fire near Jim Lake on Sunday afternoon, spreading into the woods and torching about an acre. Two helicopters, engines and a hot shot crew worked that fire Sunday and Monday.

• A second ATV caught fire on Sunday, but that fire spread only minimally into the wild lands off Carmel Road in the Knik-Goose Bay Road area. Forestry and Central Mat-Su Fire Department put that one out.

The Matanuska and Susitna Valleys were under Red Flag Warnings for most of the weekend and through Monday according to the National Weather Service. In response, Forestry had suspended burn permits since last week. Nothing bigger than a camping or cooking fire is allowed in Mat-Su and Forestry urges caution even with those.

Meanwhile, for much of the same reasons that the weather service had issued the Red Flag Warning, the Mat-Su Borough put out an air quality warning. Dry, windy conditions prompted the air quality warning for Butte, Palmer, and Wasilla.

“Children, the elderly, and persons with existing heart or lung disease should stay indoors and reduce physical activity,” the borough warns. “The general population should avoid vigorous outdoor activity.”

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