FAIRBANKS — So far, so good.
That was the word Saturday from wildfire officials on Saturday regarding the 84,000-acre Stuart Creek 2 Fire about 30 miles east of Fairbanks near the community of Two Rivers.
Despite temperatures that rose into the 80s for the second straight day in Fairbanks, the miles of fire lines that hundreds of firefighters have been building around the wildfire in recent days were holding and officials were optimistic they would continue to do so.
“It’s pretty quiet, which is a good thing,” fire information officer Mary Hules with the Alaska Fire Service said on Saturday afternoon.
As they have been doing so for the past several days, the almost 800 firefighters battling the fire that forced the evacuation of dozens of residents along Chena Hot Springs Road a week ago continued to work on building a fire line around the north and northwest perimeters of the fire closest to the community of Pleasant Valley at 25 Mile Chena Hot Springs Road.
Before Saturday, firefighters still had about 40 miles of line to build to encircle the entire fire, information officer Joe Anderson with the AFS said. The fire still was listed as 28 percent contained.
“They’re making great progress,” Anderson said. “It is dense in there, so it’s a slow-moving process.”
On Saturday, three water-scooping aircraft were being used to drop water at strategic points along the fire’s edge where firefighters were constructing line “so they can get in there and aggressively put out the fire,” Hules said.
The warmer, drier weather was serving as “a good test” for the newly constructed fire lines, Anderson said. Fire activity increased Friday as a result of the warm, dry weather, but growth around the fire perimeter was minimal, the AFS reported.
There still were pockets of fuels burning in the interior of the fire and officials hope the fire will burn itself out once the fire line is complete around it.
“It’s just kind of yawning right now, but it’s still cooking,” Anderson said of the fire. “It doesn’t take much to get it cooking more.”
Temperatures are expected to climb into the low 80s again today before beginning to cool off slightly heading into the work week, said meteorologist Scott Berg with the National Weather Service in Fairbanks.
“We are looking for more clouds and cooler temperatures as we head into the week,” he said. “We’ll see cooler temperatures with highs into the 70s and lows in the upper 40s and lower 50s.”
The clouds will bring a chance for some afternoon thunderstorms and maybe some isolated showers, but there is no significant precipitation in the forecast, Berg said.
As of Saturday, there were still 75 active fires burning in Alaska but only four of them — Stuart Creek 2, Skinny’s Road, Tetlin Junction Ridge and Moon Lake — were being fought, according to the AFS website.
The Moon Lake Fire near Tok still had more than 300 firefighters working on it as of Friday, but many of those were being demobilized this weekend to prepare for future assignments.
The Moon Lake Fire is one of six fires, along with the Tetlin Junction Ridge Fire, that is part of the Moon Lake Complex that have burned a total of almost 50,000 acres since June 20. Crews also were preparing to demobilize from the 6,700-acre Tetlin Junction Ridge Fire, which still had 73 firefighters working on it Friday.
While rain and cooler weather last week helped firefighters make good headway on the fires that are burning, there is potential for new fires to pop up with the warmer, drier weather, Anderson said.
“If we have thunderstorms again, they’re going to kick up again,” he said. “I don’t think (the fire season) is over with.”
From the News-Miner
