Interior

A fast-moving wildfire near the Elliott Highway prompted officials to ask residents to evacuate Wednesday night between Mile 41 and Mile 43 of the highway.

Alaska Fire Service spokeswoman Beth Ipsen said a state Department of Transportation work camp and a few homes are in the path of the Globe Fire, which was initially reported to be about one acre Tuesday.

“And then on Wednesday afternoon, we got reports that fire activity had significantly picked up and was moving towards the highway,” Ipsen said.

An overflight confirmed the fire’s rapid growth.

“It was estimated at more than a thousand acres and about a mile from the closest structure, and since it’s moving through black spruce, its moving rather quickly,” Ipsen said.

Ipsen said communications are difficult in the area, and Alaska State Troopers are helping.

“(We’re) getting the word out that this fire could impact the road between mile markers 37 and 52, but the residents between miles 41 and 43 are what we’re most concerned about.”

Ipsen said smokejumpers, water and retardant drops have been deployed on the Globe Fire.

Meanwhile, work continues on two other Interior wildfires off the Steese Highway. The Deception Pup Fire near Central and the Flasco Fire near Circle were hit aggressively with water and retardant late Tuesday, and Ipsen said additional resources are being sent in to aid with further suppression.

“More crews, specifically hotshot crews, two hotshot crews out of California that will drive out and help with those fires,” she said. “We’re also getting a Type 3 incident management team from Idaho that’s going to be taking over the effort on a group of fires, including these two fires, in that general vicinity of the Steese Highway.”

Red Flag conditions are forecast for much of the Interior, and wildfire activity has spurred an increase in statewide preparedness to Level 4, just shy of the highest level: 5.

The state’s two largest wildfires, the lightning-caused McDonald and Clear Fires south of Fairbanks, continue to put up heavy smoke as they burn across military training grounds west of the Tanana River. Fire information officer Terry Solomon said the blazes remain in largely undeveloped areas.

“There’s some different military infrastructure, some survival cabins and things like that,” Solomon said.

A lot of work has gone into protecting private cabins on the southern edge of the McDonald Fire. Solomon said managers are keeping a close eye on the fire’s eastern perimeter along the Tanana River and Richardson Highway.

“We do have engines and some crews that are assigned to monitor the east side of the river, just in case something were to jump the river,” he said.

As of Wednesday, the McDonald Fire was sized at over 62,000 acres, and the Clear Fire was estimated to have burned more than 23,000 acres.

The city council of North Pole voted unanimously on June 18 to remove Mayor Michael Welch, a Republican candidate for state House from office “until the next city election or until … the council determines the mayor is able to perform the duties of Mayor.”

Welch himself joined the council in the unanimous vote. North Pole’s city charter allows removal in cases where the mayor is disabled or otherwise unable to carry out his duties.

The decision followed a June 3 city council meeting that saw members of the council criticize Welch for signing a revised contract to repaint some of the city’s candy-cane-striped streetlights.

The initial contract said the streetlights were about 24 feet tall, but in reality, they are 40 feet, and the painting job cost more than expected.

The amount of the change, signed this spring, exceeded Welch’s unilateral spending authority, but it wasn’t presented to the council until this month.

“We understand that you have a job to do, but there’s no reason you should be coming, asking us for forgiveness rather than asking us for permission,” an unidentified council member said in a YouTube recording of the meeting.

Welch told council members that he didn’t recall signing the change and suggested that could be due to a series of concussions that caused him to seek hospital care.

“Three of these in eight months is pretty bad. We’re talking about concussive injury to the head,” he said.

North Pole has a strong-mayor form of government, meaning the mayor, rather than an unelected city manager, exercises executive control of city functions.

Welch was replaced on a temporary basis by Mayor Pro Tem Chandra Clack.

Welch, a Republican, is the lone challenger to incumbent Rep. Mike Prax, R-North Pole. On Monday, Welch’s cellphone was unable to accept calls, and inquiries left at his home phone were not returned.

The deadline to withdraw from this year’s legislative elections is June 29.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

As Alaska’s wildfire season ramps up, fire officials say the Interior is facing high heat and dry conditions that already have the state requesting Outside crews and aircraft.

Beth Ipsen, a spokeswoman with the federal Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska Fire Service, said Tuesday that about 100 smokejumpers from the Lower 48 are currently in state to fight Alaska wildfires.

“Those are the firefighters, the very experienced firefighters that parachute out of airplanes,” Ipsen said. “They’re (the) ones that we use predominantly for that initial response to fires, especially in remote locations.”

By Tuesday, firefighters were dealing with more than 100 wildfires statewide, many of them in the Interior. The fires are burning about 130,000 acres total, mostly in remote areas. There have been no reports of damage to cabins or other structures, though residents in a couple areas have been told to be ready to evacuate.

Right now, the McDonald Fire is the state’s largest. It had grown to more than 54,000 acres by Tuesday morning and was burning on military land across the Tanana River from Salcha. Officials said the fire is “advancing from treetop to treetop in some areas” through quick-burning black spruce, with 83 firefighters and support personnel working to contain it.

“It’s still west of the Tanana River and we’d like to keep it there, because on the other side of the Tanana River are Salcha, Harding Lake and a lot of homes,” Ipsen said.

More than 10,000 lightning strikes were recorded across the state on Sunday and Monday, according to Ipsen, causing a string of fires north of Fairbanks along the Chatanika River. The Fairbanks North Star Borough has issued a Level 2 evacuation-preparedness notice for residents in the area – the second in the “Ready, Set, Go” sequence for approaching wildfires.

The numerous wildfires are affecting Interior driving conditions, with state transportation officials urging motorists in the region to drive with headlights on. Fairbanks public radio station KUAC reported Monday that smoke is also producing air quality advisories in Fairbanks and other parts of the Interior.

In Southcentral Alaska, fire danger has been markedly lower this year, according to Ipsen.

Ipsen said the region has seen traditionally lower temperatures than the Interior, as well as occasional rains. Although more than 1,000 lightning strikes were recorded in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough on Sunday, a small fire near the Willow Airport had burned less than an acre by Monday.

Ipsen said that according to climatologist Rick Thoman, Alaska remains below average so far this year for acreage burned by wildfires. She credited that initial success to quick attacks by fire crews, especially smokejumpers delivered by helicopter in “helitack” flights.

“But we’re getting into the time of the year where with the sustained dry weather, it’s drying the deeper ground layers out, and we’re starting to see some of those fires being a little bit harder to get a handle on,” she said. “And that will continue if we continue to have that hot, dry weather – there’s no big rain forecast in sight.”

Dry conditions in the Lower 48 could also cause the fire crews and support aircraft currently helping Alaska-based firefighters to be called elsewhere, Ipsen said.

Ipsen said Alaska is unique in having a relatively low proportion of wildfires started by people, about 60% versus 80% in the Lower 48. She said Alaskans can assist fire crews by keeping it that way.

“We’re pretty thankful that there hasn’t been a lot of impacts with human-caused fires,” she said. “It’s been mostly lightning-caused fires lately, so we can just have people help us out with that.”

Homeowners can also make homes more resilient to wildfires by cleaning gutters and limbing nearby spruce trees, Ipsen said.

Wildfire activity ramped over the weekend due to hot, dry conditions and numerous lightning strikes, including over 6,500 Sunday.

“Sunday is definitely our largest amount of lightning for one day this season,” said Sam Harrel, a spokesman for the Alaska Division of Forestry.

Harrel said even prior to Sunday’s lighting, earlier strikes resulted in numerous starts.

“Forty new fires, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” he said.

The new fires were spread across a wide area of the state, from Southwest to the Kenai, Mat-Su and Interior. Among new fires responded to was a 1-acre blaze near the Willow Airport that was hit Sunday night with water and retardant.

“Retardant tanker and air attack responded from Fairbanks, and the tanker was able to make multiple drops with one load of retardant to encircle the fire with retardant, and that allows ground forces to get into place and start to encircle the fire’s edge,” Harrel said.

More forecast hot weather and lightning combined with increasingly dry duff layers has elevated wildfire potential. Harrel said additional firefighters are due from the Lower 48 starting Monday.

“There are three hotshot crews on that flight. On Wednesday, we are expecting another jet load with three hotshot crews on it,” Harrel said.

More firefighting aircraft are also coming from outside, according to Alaska Fire Service information officer Joan Kluwe.

“Water scooping planes and air tankers. There’s also a variety of helicopters,” Kluwe said.

Kluwe said the fire service was working seven fires as of Sunday night, including the McDonald Fire south of Fairbanks where efforts continue to protect cabins on the blaze’s south side.

“They did burnout operations on the west side of those cabins, and then they are also working on creating a contingency line on the east side,” she said.

Meanwhile, Kluwe said a new lightning-caused fire north of the McDonald Fire is also burning on military training grounds. She says the Clear Fire is in an area where there’s unexploded ordnance, which is restricting firefighters to point protection for threatened military assets.

There are over 100 active wildfires burning in the state.

The Army Corps of Engineers has decided to begin demolition of Fort Greely’s long-mothballed nuclear power plant this summer, a year earlier than planned. That means trucks will begin hauling construction debris off-site this fall.

The SM-1A nuclear power plant was taken off-line back in 1972, and the most radioactive reactor components were removed. More than 50 years later, the building that housed the reactor is scheduled for demolition.

On Tuesday, the head of a Corps of Engineers team in charge of the dismantling and decommissioning project gave a tour of the old power plant for a group of state and federal elected officials’ staff.

Program Manager Brenda Barber provided a project update, including Corps of Engineers decision to delay enclosing the building in a big tent to facilitate year-round work.

“We’ve had some challenges with respect to getting that up and running,” she told staff from U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office and from state Rep. Ashley Carrick and state Sen. Robert Myers. Rep. Mike Cronk also participated in the tour.

Barber said the original plan was to erect a large weatherproof enclosure on top of shipping containers, but that raised concerns about potential earthquake, snow and wind damage, “and whether or not that weather enclosure would stay stable on top of those conexes during some of the severe weather that occurs here.”

That led the Corps’ team to reconsider how to cover the plant with the enclosure, and the vapor containment or VC structure that towers over facility.

“That means we have to eliminate some of the height concerns, particularly with the vapor containment structure,” she said, “so that the tent can completely encompass the site, the way we intended it to do.”

Barber says the Corps’ team now proposes to partially dismantle the VC structure and remove an old quonset hut next to the plant this summer and set up the enclosure over the site next year. Demolition work would then continue through the winter. Barber says the “re-sequencing” of the work includes moving up asbestos removal to this year.

“So this means that the community on base will see some demolition activity that we originally hadn’t planned to do this year,” she said in an interview after the tour.

The work requires the Corps to monitor the demolition waste for asbestos and low-level radiation sooner than initially planned.

“That will include all of our environmental monitoring and all of our radiological monitoring on very early, in August,” she said.

The materials being removed and taken off-site are classified as low-level radioactive waste. But initially, some of the waste will be inert, she added.

“All the debris that’ll be leaving now will be just metal from the demolition, some wood debris – basically construction debris.”

Barber says the Corps needs approval from the Army Reactor Office before work under the new schedule can begin. If they get the go-ahead, demolition will start this summer with trucks hauling away debris starting in the fall.

“So it’ll be a truck carrying what we call an intermodal container,” she said. “It’s very similar in size and look to a SeaLand container that you’d typically see on a barge.”

An average of two trucks per week will transport containers to Fairbanks, where they’ll be transferred to Alaska Railroad cars for delivery to Anchorage or Whittier. From there, they’ll be barged to Seattle, then railroaded to a hazardous waste facility in Texas.

Barber says the re-sequencing of work should enable the Corps to complete the dismantling and decommissioning of the power plant by the end of 2029, the previously set goal.

She says the agency will hold public meetings on the new schedule in July or August to let the public know about the new plan for dismantling the old SM-1A.

Toranosuke Nagayama and his two climbing partners spent more than two years planning a major expedition on Denali.

“Alaskan climbing is very special,” Nagayama said. “We are really interested in that, like, a very white world. So we came here.”

Nagayama flew to Anchorage from Canada last month to finally make the long-awaited trek on Denali. His two partners — Subaru Takeda and Genya Takenaka — traveled all the way from Japan.

After they arrived, they left their bags unattended in the lobby of the Anchorage apartment they had rented. And when they came back a few hours later, the bags were gone. Nagayama estimates that between $10,000 to $20,000 worth of climbing gear was stolen. They were devastated.

“I gave up at the time, like I gave up the expedition,” Nagayama said. “I was really ready for climbing, and I was so excited to see the glacier. I was really disappointed at the time.”

The next day, on a whim, Takeda posted a handwritten sign at REI, asking if anyone had information about their stolen gear. Someone took a photo of the sign, and uploaded it to the Alaska Rock Climbing Facebook page.

Within hours, Alaskans started reaching out, offering to lend equipment. Dana Drummond, owner of The Hoarding Marmot, even organized a spreadsheet of everything they needed — jackets, crampons, harnesses, ice axes and more.

“The Alaskan people were really kind,” Nagayama said. “I didn’t expect it. So it was so quick. And then we thought, ‘Oh, we might be able to continue this trip.’ It was a really good day.”

Their plan was to link two complicated climbs together: the West and East Kahiltna Peaks with the Cassin Ridge of Denali. No one had successfully linked these peaks in one self-supported endeavor.

In 2008, Japanese climbers Tatsuro Yamada and Yuto Inoue tried, but they disappeared near the top of Denali. In 2011, it was attempted again by Yasuhiro Hanatani and Kei Taniguchi, but they did not complete it.

After gathering gear from climbers all over Anchorage, Nagayama, Takeda and Takenaka set out to make their attempt.

They spent two weeks acclimating to the elevation, and then they started traversing. For 10 days, they climbed through difficult weather, and on snow and ice they described as “fragile.” They had hoped to also summit Denali, but a bout of hypothermia turned them around just before the summit. They were happy to complete their main goal — linking the Kahiltna peaks with the Cassin Ridge.

“The glacier was really beautiful, like huge and flat glacier,” Nagayama said. “We are so excited.”

Takeda took iPhone videos of their expedition, especially in rare moments of good weather. One shows the clouds below them as the endless snow glistens in the sunshine. There they are, dancing for the camera and jingling other people’s quickdraws, and dusting off other people’s crampons. Takeda said he thought about this a lot during the climb.

“From the top of me and from the base of me, I wear the other people gears,” he said. “I thought that it is meaningful thing.”

Clint Helander lent ski skins and helmets. He wasn’t surprised that so many were quick to help.

“I think Alaskans are pretty resilient and you really kind of have to rely on people up here,” he said. “Sometimes you think you’re all separate from everybody and you have little disagreements here and there, but it’s really cool just to see how — in the climbing world or just in Alaska in general — how people really come together to help people out.” 

Takeda said he’s so grateful.

“I could never do this without Alaskan people’s help,” he said.

Before flying home last week, they unpacked their borrowed gear and returned it all to the local climbers who — together — helped make their expedition successful.