Deep snowpack a good sign for midsummer fire season

The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has been working over the winter to finish a fire break near Sterling. (Photo courtesy Kenai National Wildlife Refuge)
The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has been working over the winter to finish a fire break near Sterling. (Photo courtesy Kenai National Wildlife
Refuge)

Despite all the snow still on the ground and in the forecast, it won’t be long before attention turns to fire season.

Winter and fire go better together than you might expect.

The frozen ground gives crews at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge a good opportunity to do preventative work that will help later on during the height of fire season.

Near Sterling, which has dealt with wildland fires three of the past four years, a big fire break project is just coming to a close, said Mike Hill, assistant fire management officer at the Refuge.

“It is a total of 8.5 miles. It goes from the Refuge boundary where it intersects with the Sterling highway, just past 3 Johns road. It goes north for about 2.5 miles, turns and follows the Refuge boundary and goes west for 6 miles and almost intersects with Swanson River road. That has been our big focus this winter.”

Hill said that area offers a unique opportunity for monitoring and studying what happens when you clear out a big fire break and how that affects not only future fire behavior, but the immediate environment.

“(It’s) kind of uncharted territory, too. Nobody, including Canada and the Lower 48, has done a real in depth monitoring system of masticated fuels treatments. That’s what we’re setting out to do. It’s pretty labor intensive. It’s also pretty fun.”

That fuel break also has offered snowmachiners some fun this winter.

While it’s been a decent snow year on the Refuge and across the Peninsula, that doesn’t tell us much about what the upcoming season might bring.

“Somebody said to me one time the only people who predict fire seasons are rookies and fools,” Hill said. “But in all seriousness, we do have a predictive services element to our decision making process, and they do look at large scale weather pattern influences like La Nina and El Nino, snowpack. The snowpack helps with the midsummer fire season a lot because it really helps with soil moisture and duff moisture.”

But the risk still is there early on, when uncovered, dry grass has yet to green up.

Another potential problem fuel that they’re keeping an eye out for on the refuge is beetle kill spruce.

Hill said they’re seeing a bit more of it in the northern reaches of the refuge, but that doesn’t necessarily mean an increased fire hazard.

“The reality is that yes, it does not help the situation. But it isn’t as big a factor as we initially had thought.”

That’s based on what’s now known about previous fires in the Caribou Hills and going back to the mid-90’s when a lot of beetle kill was consumed by fire.

Hill said the bigger risk is often public safety, where weakened and dead trees can pose a risk of falling at campgrounds or onto roads.

Sign up for The Signal

Top Alaska stories delivered to your inbox every week

Site notifications
Update notification options
Subscribe to notifications