The North Is Burning: 278 Fires In Alaska (Wed); 123 In Yukon (32 All Of 2014), NWT As Well
Following on a record hot May in which much snow cover melted off early, Alaska saw no less than 152 fires erupt over the weekend. A further increase since then had the number of active fires at 243 as of Tuesday — a number that appears to have risen still further to 278 Wednesday, according to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center.
“Given the high number of fires and the personnel assigned to those fires, the state’s firefighting resources are becoming very limited, forcing fire managers to prioritize resources,” noted the state’s Department of Natural Resources Tuesday. The preparedness level at the moment for the state is 5, meaning that “resistance to control is high to extreme and resistance to extinguishment is high.” Granted, according to reporting by the Alaska News Dispatch, while this year’s fire numbers are high total acreage burned so far hasn’t been that huge. Nonetheless, it’s quite a busy start to the summer — and there’s a lot of fire season left to go.
All of which is troubling for multiple reasons: (1) Recent research suggests that more Alaskan wildfires, and more large Alaskan fires in particular, are a trend; (2) In some cases, wildfires in Alaska don’t just consume trees, grasses or tundra. They can burn away soils as well and threaten permafrost, frozen soil beneath the ground, and so potentially help to trigger additional release of carbon to the atmosphere.
“One major concern about wildfires becoming more frequent in permafrost areas is the potential to put the vast amounts of carbon stored there at increased risk of being emitted and further amplify warming,” said Todd Sanford, a climate scientist at Climate Central and lead author of the group’s newly released report on Alaskan wildfires, by e-mail.
EDIT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/06/24/more-than-200-fires-are-burning-in-alaska-right-now-heres-why-thats-a-big-deal/
Yukon's Wildland Fire Management agency is asking for outside help after almost a dozen new fire starts on Sunday. That brings the total burning to about 80 fires.
George Maratos, spokeperson for Yukon Wildland Fire Management, says there have already been 123 forest fires in Yukon this season. That's compared to 32 forest fires during all of last year.
"With that, we've put in a request for additional support from outside the territory so we're hoping to receive more initial attack crews — so that would be about 45 firefighters from a neighbouring province if they're able to provide that support," Maratos says. He says damper conditions in the Whitehorse area have lessened the risk and frequency of fire starts there, but the weather has been drier in central and northern Yukon.
All of the new fires on Sunday started in the Dawson, Carmacks and Mayo districts. Maratos says the most notable is burning 23 kilometres north of Stewart Crossing. It began on Saturday afternoon and is being fought both on the ground and from the air by helicopters and air tankers.
EDIT
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-asks-for-help-as-forest-fire-starts-far-surpass-all-of-last-year-1.3123444
Hot, dry weather in most of the Northwest Territories over the next few days is expected to significantly increase the number of forest fires in the region. In anticipation of more fires, the territorial government says it's commissioning extra air tankers and fire personnel.
There are currently 45 firefighters working on wildfires in the Northwest Territories. There have been 76 forest fires in the territory so far this season. That's about double the 25-year average for this time of year.
"We are pretty much over any of the cool type of weather," fire operations manager Richard Olsen said on Monday.
"We are expecting to move into some real significant hot, dry conditions into the weekend. Coming with that though are a series of embedded troughs that are going to bring moisture and lightning so we are expecting the conditions exist again for another series of fire occurrences through the weekend."
EDIT
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/n-w-t-fires-expected-to-flare-up-with-hot-dry-weather-1.3124995
EDIT
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/n-w-t-fires-expected-to-flare-up-with-hot-dry-weather-1.3124995