Fires have broken out across Alaska this year, from the largest wildfire in a customarily fire-resistant southwest region to two fires that tore through forests and produced smoke that traveled hundreds of miles to the Bering Sea community of Nome, where the usually clear air was pushed into the extremely unhealthy category.
An area the size of Connecticut has been burnt by more than 530 different wildfires so far this season, and the worst of it is still to come. As a result, some families have been forced to leave their homes. One casualty has been recorded; a helicopter pilot trying to transport a cargo of equipment for firefighters was killed last month when he crashed.
Alaska experiencing wildfires it’s never seen before https://t.co/0xcqbq0UYr
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 25, 2022
However, longer-term predictions suggest a pattern similar to 2004, when July showers gave way to high-pressure systems, scorching days, low humidity, and lightning strikes that ignited Alaska’s worst fire year.
At the end of the 2004 fire season, 10,156 square miles (26,304 square kilometers) of land had been burnt, similar to this year’s mid-July expanse.
A climate expert at the University of Alaska’s International Arctic Research Center tells the Alaska Dispatch News that “the frequency of these major seasons has increased” during the second half of the 20th century. In other words, there’s no reason to believe this won’t continue.
Wildfires are becoming more common, destructive, and challenging due to the increasing frequency and severity of heat waves and droughts brought on by a changing climate. As a result of the country’s record-breaking temperatures, flames have ravaged Portugal, Spain, France, England, and Germany this month.
The state of California is bracing itself for late summer and fall filled with smoke and blazes after recording its worst, most destructive, and deadliest wildfires in the previous five years.
Alaska, the country’s biggest state, has also had a lack of rain. Duff layer, the ring of decaying moss and grasses blanketing the floor of boreal woods and the tundra, dried out in parts due to early snowmelt and a rain-free June. At least 2 feet (0.6 meters) of decayed organic debris can be found.
The East Fork fire originated in southwest Alaska on May 31 when a lightning strike struck the duff layer in the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta. The most significant wildfire in the delta, which burned 259 square miles, threatened two settlements with a total population of 700, although no necessary evacuations were issued (671 square kilometers). The villages were also well-served by the fire department’s efforts.
Thoman claimed that a fire of that magnitude could only have occurred due to global warming. Thick willow and alder forests are sprouting up between tundra and forests, while spruce forests in river valleys are expanding in size and spreading higher into the hillsides.
“This is due to decades of warmer spring and summers in the region as a direct result of climate change,” he added. “Fires that have more fuel to work with, of course, burn hotter. They burn for longer. They are more able to withstand weather fluctuations.”
Humans are responsible for around half of Alaska’s wildfires. The other half of the blazes are ignited by lightning. Only 2 square miles (5 square kilometers) of the 4,687 square miles (12,140 square kilometers) burnt so far this year have been caused by human activity.
Fighting all of Alaska’s wildfires is neither practical nor necessary. Alaska’s ecosystem relies on fire to clear the low-lying waste and thin trees and replenish plant and animal habitats. As a result, most fires in the state are let to burn themselves out or are extinguished by rain and snow. In densely inhabited regions, firefighting resources are put to use.
There have been around 145,000 lightning strikes in Alaska and nearby parts of Canada so far this year, according to data gathered by the BLM’s lightning detecting network. Between July 5-11, weather systems brought rain, but roughly 50 fires were also sparked, resulting in a 42% increase in wildfires.
For Alaska lightning, Thoman stated that having concentrated lightning when we receive a significant portion of the season’s lightning all at once in a few days is “quite usual.” In places that had not previously seen flames, “there was much lightning focused in one area.”
The flame smoke has created perilous breathing conditions, even though little property has been lost. Fires near Lake Iliamna merged and burnt 75 square miles of boreal forest in one day, releasing smoke and ash that strong winds carried hundreds of miles northwest to Nome, putting the air quality level into the inferior category.
“This is a testimony to how fierce those flames were.” Thoman said: “I would never have guessed you could have that terrible air quality back 400 miles from the active fires”.