News-Miner Editorial
Be fire safe
California offers a reminder for Alaskans
Published Monday, July 7, 2008
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Stumble It!California’s wildfires, burning in the northern and central regions of that state, should be seen not as a distant calamity but as a reminder for Alaskans — and especially newcomers to the state — about what nature can whip up with little notice.
The California blazes erupted June 21, with most caused by lightning strikes. Officials have tallied about 1,700 fires from that day forward, and about 330 are still burning. Several dozen homes have been destroyed, and one firefighter has been killed.
An Associated Press story of June 24 said California’s electrical storm included nearly 8,000 lightning strikes that ignited more than 800 wildfires — “a rare example of ‘dry lightning’ that brought little or no rain but plenty of sparks to the state’s parched forests and grasslands.”
It’s a mess down there.
Alaska, though, gets stung by lightning quite regularly and sometimes on just as grand a scale. This state is so big, however, and so sparsely populated that the impact doesn’t register as quickly as it would in a densely populated state like California. Consider that Alaska, according to the state Division of Forestry, got peppered with 6,383 lightning strikes Saturday. The strikes occurred in a band from the Canadian border through Fairbanks and southwest into Bethel and beyond.
Alaska dodged a big-time bullet this time because conditions were damp enough that the lightning sparked only a couple of wildfires, all in the Southwest.
It’s a reminder, nevertheless, to take stock of your home’s wildfire defenses. Contact the Alaska Division of Forestry for advice.
Community Discussion
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Speaking of, where did the nastiness of Saturday night roll in from? I nearly left town for the rest of the summer right then. I was pleasantly surprised Sunday morning when it was gone....
Allow me to point you at this (http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/0...) story, Chris. Because the wind's shifted and died down, we're not seeing the smoke from those fires near Fort Yukon anymore. Because they're still burning, however, if the wind picks back up and comes out of the northeast, it'll come back to Fairbanks.
Chris, guess you missed the Boundary and Chatanika fires a few years back. This is nothing. You can see over a mile down the road. ;-P
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