An unusually early start to the year’s fire season, combined with continuing dry weather conditions, has given the fires time to grow, said University of Maryland-College Park researcher Eric Kasischke.
The fire ecologist has been studying Alaska wildfires for more than 20 years, and most summers, he treks to the Tok and Fairbanks areas for his research. This season, Kasischke stayed home (a decision made before the fires started); but even from his East coast office, he has been following Alaska fire stats as passionately as a baseball fan following a favorite team.
“What’s unusual this year is that you’re having so many large early season fires,” Kasischke said earlier this week. “There has never been a year in the past 10 when you’ve seen this much burn so early in the fire season.”
With July wildfires already consuming forest at a rate between 60,000 and 180,000 acres per day, Kasischke said, it’s a conservative guess they will continue to grow by at least 100,000 acres per day. That means Alaska could hit the 3-million-acre mark by as early as the end of this week. If the total surpasses the 3.2 million acres burned in 1990, that would make this the third largest fire season on record.
Read the rest at Alaska Science Outreach.