As of today, July 12th, Alaska has 161 active wildfires in the state. Some are small spot fires from lightening. Some are large and areas are evacuated. I heard the hospital in Fairbanks opened a special room for people to go to for respiratory problems, or just get out of the smoke.
You can click on the picture to enlarge it.
Most of the state is in a red flag warning. The temperatures were in the upper 80's and low 90's for about a week, with no rain, and that is unusual for here. Several areas hit record highs. Open fires and campfires are prohibited.
The fire that was near us when we left the Watson Lake Campground on June 10th is still going. The highway nearby was closed for a while due to the smoke and how close the fire was getting to the highway.
Per a website, in 2013, Alaska had a hot summer; during that year fires burned 1,319,866 acres. In 2014, Alaska had one of its wettest summers ever; during that year, fires burned 233,529 acres.
On July 9th KTUU reported that over a million acres have been burned this year so far, so we're probably heading to that 2013 mark.
According to the Division of Forestry, fire statistics; as of 2017, 2004 was the worse year for acreage burned.
You would think there wouldn't be anything left to burn any more, but Alaska includes an area of more than 375 million acres.
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