‘Cluster’ of strikes ignite ‘multiple different starts’ along Pogo mine road; smoke triggers DEC air-quality advisory
Thousands of lightning strikes around the eastern Interior sparked new wildfires Monday.
Two of the fires ignited by lightning Monday are burning in areas off the Pogo gold mine access road north of Delta Junction. State Division of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesperson Lily Coyle says the biggest is the 150-acre Pogo Mine Road Fire that was started by several strikes.
“That was actually a cluster of ignitions, so there’s multiple different starts,” she said, “and they’re very close to each other, so we’re just considering it one fire.”
Coyle says the other area fire start the 6-Mile Pogo Road Fire had burned about 6 acres as of Monday night.
“There are no structures threatened on the Pogo Mine Road Fire or the 6-Mile Pogo Fire,” she said. “We did have air resources responding and are continuing to monitor.”
Further north, the McCoy Creek Fire near Salcha had burned about 50 acres as of Monday night. The Bureau of Land Management Alaska Fire Service was also busy with new lightning starts.
“We got a lot of reports coming in through the dispatch centers, so we sent some AFS personnel up in a plane to check them out,” she said. “And as we were sending people out, they were finding new fires.”
Alaska Fire Service spokesperson Beth Ipsen says the agency recorded 7,000 lightning strikes around the Interior on Monday. But that night, the only high-priority fire in the federal agency’s area of responsibility was the 5-acre Moose Fire, burning near milepost 100 of the Elliott Highway.
“It’s not immediately threatening anything,” she said, “but we’d like to keep it from impacting the highway.”
Ipsen said rainfall and the damp subsurface soil around the region should slow the fire’s growth.
“Those deeper ground layers haven’t dried out like they would in a typical year,” she said. “So most of what we’re going to see right now is more surface-burning. They will be a little bit more manageable if we get on them right away.”
Meanwhile, rain showers are helping clear the air of smoke that’s been drifting into the Interior from large wildfires in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
“Definitely, rain can help alleviate some of the smoke,” says Bobby Bianco, a National Weather Service meteorologist. He says that’s what happened Monday afternoon in Fairbanks.
“It did reduce some of the smoke here just a little bit,” he said. “The wind kind of pushed it south of the area, and we see a little bit bluer skies.”
The state Department of Environmental Conservation issued an air-quality advisory Monday afternoon stating that the smoke poses a potential health threat to vulnerable populations like the elderly, children and people suffering from heart and lung problems.
