ANDERSON, Alaska — In the wilderness north of Denali, North America’s highest mountain, the U.S. military built radar installations near Russian airspace during the Cold War to detect ballistic missile incursions during nuclear attacks.
This summer, the complex came under attack not by foreign forces, but by wildfires, as drought depleted parts of Alaska’s wilderness.
In fighting the flames, an elite Federal Smokejumper squad parachuted into a dense spruce forest to clear a landing zone for firefighters. About 600 firefighters fanned out in trucks, boats and amphibious vehicles to reach other remote areas around the Teklanika River. A helicopter taking off from a nearby runway crashed, killing a veteran pilot who was moving equipment to the front lines.
“This place felt like a war zone,” said Don Devereaux, a 73-year-old retired construction worker. When he was evacuated from his home near the facility in June, flames reached his garden and ignited hundreds of trees around it that were ready to burn. “Black spruce,” he said. “They call it gasoline on a stick, and there’s a reason for it.”
When the crew finally got the flames under control about a month later, they managed to save a valuable radar installation now known as the Clear Space Force Station and operated by the newest branch of the US military. But true to its name, Clearfire, sparked by lightning, left him 72,000 acres of scorched landscape in the wilderness around Anderson, Alaska.
From the surge in severe thunderstorms to the accumulation of combustible grass in the thawing tundra, embarrassing factors are causing a surge in wildfires across America’s largest states. Faced with rapid warming of the Arctic due to climate change, people living in Alaska’s fire zones are bracing for the possibility that this year’s wildfires may be just a glimpse of even bigger megafires to come.
Six of the 10 largest wildfires in the United States this year have occurred in Alaska. Some are still smoldering, causing fear of so-called “zombie fires” or “sleeping dragons.” This fire, which appears to darken when it rains or snows, actually burns slowly near the ground during the winter and erupts again in the spring. .
More than 550 wildfires devoured 3 million acres across the state before much of the state was covered in rain in July. That’s more than the total land area of the other 49 states combined this year, and nearly three times the historical annual average for Alaska. Ten years.
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The fires were caused by severe drought in the state’s south-central region, where more than half of Alaska’s population lives. For the first time in history, temperatures in Anchorage topped 60 degrees every day in her June, bringing the city closer to record low rainfall.
Alaska isn’t the only high northern hemisphere heat wave this summer.Nearly 200 recent fires burnt Northern Canada was hit by fires in the Russian Far East in July this year. river of smoke Part of Siberia captured by NASA satellites.
Alaska shows how devastating wildfires in the north can be. More than 31.4 million acres were destroyed by fire between 2001 and 2020, according to the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks.
Wildfires in Alaska are very difficult to deal with. Clear Fire presented the challenge of containing the flames cutting through vast areas of the boreal forest, which consists largely of spruce and aspen in Alaska. These boreal forests span Canada, Alaska, Siberia, and Northern Europe and form huge reservoirs of carbon dioxide.
“The terrain is so rugged that it’s very difficult to do fire containment like we’re used to at Lower 48,” he said, referring to the nearly 600 firefighters from Montana who are involved in fighting Clear Fire. said Kate Earhart, who was sent to help direct. She cited the need for helicopters, boats and even “fat trucks” (Canadian-made amphibious all-terrain vehicles that can float on water) to reach some areas.
Instead of containing wildfires — by creating perimeters to keep wildfires from spreading — as is often done in the mainland U.S. — Alaskan crews will protect remote homes and critical infrastructure. I often opt for the “point protection” strategy, but effectively allow it. A fire burning in the tundra and vast forestlands.
For Clear Fire, that primarily meant trying to defend Anderson’s remote settlement. 177, and radar stations, plus a series of off-grid housing. Despite efforts, civilian structures such as houses, cabins, barns, and sheds were destroyed.
Retired biologist Charmi Weker said he heard the embers crackle as the flames approached his home. Weker, 70, spent her five days camping with her husband, horse and dog on a nearby gravel pit as hundreds of firefighters battled the blaze.
Mr. Devereaux, a former construction worker, is Mr. Weker’s next-door neighbor. He and his wife Dorothy were paid $50 per acre for 178 acres of land in the 1990s. This was part of a program to try farming for people in the interior of Alaska.
After being evacuated in June, DeBlauws returned home to grow hay. They found aircraft-dropped red flame retardants hardening their homes, gardens and front yards. They lost two of his buildings, a barn and a shed, but are able to live in the house.
“This kind of risk is territorial,” DeBrow said.
Part of the reason is that Alaska’s vast land mass and small population complicate firefighting efforts. Faced with tight local resources and staffing shortages, states sent thousands of firefighters from the 48 contiguous United States and Canada this summer.
Still, the sparse or non-existent conditions of good roads prevented the crew from reaching some fire zones. It was about the same 1,800 miles.
And as the climate warms, fires are typically burning across frigid tundra and in new conditions, rather than being confined primarily to the flammable boreal forest.About 450 miles west of Anchorage. The East Fork fire in Alaska spread over 250,000 acres, displaced Yupik villagers, and was one of the most devastating tundra blazes on record in Alaska.
Rising temperatures are causing the tundra to thaw faster, sparking fires and spreading more widely than it did last summer, climate experts say. In tundra ecosystems, flammable grasses and shrubs are replacing fire-resistant lichens and mosses.
“Thanks to decades of warming, the tundra has far more vegetation,” said Rick Toman, a climate expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “We have more biomass to burn.” I have. It means hotter fire.”
Climate researchers are investigating other factors that are making fires more widespread, including an increase in thunderstorms, which are causing the most fires in the state. Inland Alaska had about 18,000 lightning strikes in just two days in early July, Toman said.
“We know that as the environment warms, there will be more humidity that causes thunderstorms and such,” he said, emphasizing that such storms are occurring more frequently where they rarely occur. .
Another challenge in Alaska’s many fire-ravaged landscapes is duff. Duff is a slowly decomposing layer of moss, lichen, and tree needles, typically found on the forest floor about a foot deep. The fire smolders under Duff’s surface for several weeks.
If conditions are dry, the flames can travel several kilometers beneath the duff’s surface, according to Zab Gravinski of the Alaska Fire Science Consortium. He said it would set the stage for a massive wildfire.
Additionally, Alaska also faces a wildfire problem. This wildfire appears to be extinguishing beneath the vast expanse of snow, but has not actually been extinguished. Though considered relatively rare, these fires can burn deep into the carbon-rich soil, smoldering during the winter and reigniting furiously in the spring.
Scientists call these overwinter fires “zombie fires,” but firefighters sent to Anderson this summer had another name: “sleeping dragons.” They fear the flames will roar in the months to come, even though they seem to have put down the clearing fires around the missile facility.
Mark Gehler, who was assigned to Anderson from Oklahoma and served as Clear Fire Incident Commander, said: