Alaska Wildfire Inching Toward Homes South of Anchorage

Eric Chaney
Published: July 20,2016

This aerial photo provided by the Alaska Division of Forestry shows smoke from a wildfire burning south of Anchorage, Alaska, Tuesday, July 19,2016. Crews are battling the rapidly growing wildfire that's inching toward a residential subdivision.
(Jason Jordet/Alaska Division of Forestry via AP)

A wildfire raging just south of Anchorage, Alaska, is inching toward homes after closing the only highway leading south out of the city to all but one lane for a 5-mile stretch.
An increase in winds late Monday night and early Tuesday caused the 600-acre McHugh fire to flare up, sending rocks and burning debris onto the Seward Highway below, according to Inciweb. A pilot car had been leading traffic on the highway between Mileposts 108 and 113.
The road was reopened late Tuesday, Alaska Dispatch News reports, but the fire was just over a mile away from Potter Valley and homes in Rainbow Valley late Tuesday afternoon, Alaska Division of Forestry spokeswoman Sarah Saarloos told Alaska Dispatch News.
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Traffic on the Seward Highway has been reduced to one lane with a pilot car due to heavy smoke and fire activity near the road.
(Lori Wiertsema/Alaska Division of Forestry)

No evacuations had been ordered by late Tuesday, she said, but some residents had started packing their bags in case they needed to flee the fire that started Saturday.
“I feel pretty nervous,” Potter Marsh resident Valerie Buckendorf told KTVA.com. “It can really howl up here. We’ve had some pretty wicked windstorms. I’m packing and letting my kids know we may have to leave, trying not to panic.”
Some residents took matters into their own hands, like Rainbow Valley resident Lindsay Fagrelius, who decided on her own to evacuate and was waiting it out at the Brown Bear Saloon, KTOO reports.
“The trees and brush are so dense up there I almost think it’s hopeless,” Fagrelius, who used to work as a firefighter in Montana, told KTOO. “I think if it goes through, it’s going to burn pretty hot.”
Tim Mowry, spokesman for the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center in Fairbanks, told the Associated Press that crews were in the area doing home-protection work, such as cutting down trees and moving wood piles. Crews in air tankers were dropping fire retardant at the north perimeter of the inferno closest to the neighborhood, and helicopters were dropping water on the blaze itself.
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Firefighters also assessed structures about two and a half miles south of the fire in case the wind changes direction, officials said.
The cause of the blaze is unknown. It's burning in the area that includes a steep recreational hiking trail in Chugach State Park, and that area has been closed to the public.
Two firefighters were treated for non-life-threatening illnesses Monday that were related to hot weather.
Crews have been slowed in battling the blaze, in part, because of recently reported bear activity. Hotshot crews also have been slowed by scores of toppled spruce trees that were killed by beetles, Mowry said.
"Where they're working is real steep terrain. There's a lot of dead and downed trees," he said. "It's really gnarly terrain in there."
Fire managers will be getting help Wednesday from five hotshot crews being sent from the Lower 48, he added.
Also on Tuesday, Anchorage fire officials announced a municipality-wide ban on open burning, citing dry, hot and windy conditions. Fire officials also sent out a public alert asking people to avoid the Seward Highway because of the fire.
Fire Department spokeswoman Cleo Hill said some responders were somewhat delayed by traffic, but they eventually arrived at the scene. Hill said officials are pushing the message: "If possible, stay off the highway until the road is more clear."
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