Smoke Smears Alaska During Worst Fire Season On Record - ADN

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"Acrid smoke from Interior wildfires drifted into Anchorage, the Mat-Su and other areas of Alaska on Monday, irritating eyes and throats, prompting health warnings and disappointing visitors who expected Alaska's legendary clear skies and long-distance vistas. And the haze won't disappear soon, the National Weather Service says. The atmospheric conditions that drew the smoke 250 miles or more should linger at least several more days.

The pall, which helped boost the temperature to a record-shattering 84 degrees, is giving Anchorage a taste of the worst wildfire season in Alaska history. Nearly 5 million acres have burned, according to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center in Fairbanks on Monday afternoon. Different agencies offer slightly different numbers for the record year of 1957, in which about 5 million acres burned.

In most years, the fire season would be history by now, extinguished by late-summer rains. But continued hot, dry weather has kept fires alive throughout the eastern Interior. Satellite photos show the smoke that wafted into the Anchorage Bowl is from fires around Tok, where more than 1 million acres have burned this summer.

Nearly 100 fires are burning across Alaska, including seven new wildfires reported in the Mat-Su on Monday by John See, regional fire manager with the state Division of Forestry. Another wildfire was reported about three miles north of Homer on Monday afternoon."

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