June 10, 2022 - Early Fire Season Sparks to Life in Southwest Alaska

Fires
Tweet
Share

Snow, smoke, and springtime fires colored the landscape of Southwest
Alaska in early June 2022. On June 8, the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a
true-color image that stretched from Norton Sound (west) to Cook Inlet
and the Kenai Peninsula (east). Multiple red “hot spots”, each
accompanied by plumes of smoke, mark more than a dozen fires burning in
this section of the state. A blanket of smoke covers the southern-most
portion of the image, while copious snow blankets the highest
elevations of the Aleutian and Alaskan Ranges.

According to the Alaskan Wildland Fire Information Map Series posted
online on June 9, at least thirty individual fires were burning in
Alaska, most of those in the southern half of the state. The Brooks
Range as well as the North Slope (both to the north of the top edge of
this image) remain fire-free. The same organization reported that the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Alaska Fire Service were working one
notable fire, the East Fork Fire, ramping up efforts to protect Native
allotments, cabins, and nearby communities as wind pushed that fire to
within 8 miles of the town of St. Mary’s. The East Fork Fire reached
nearly 50,000 acres on June 9, after it crossed the Adreasfsky River
earlier in the week.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks identifies four phases of the Alaska
fire season, especially in the interior region of the state. The first
is Early Fire Season, which occurs just after snow melt, typically from
May through early June. This is phase is driven by dead grass ignited
by human activities and driven by strong winds. The Peak phase, also
known as the Duff-Driven phase, occurs by long warm days around the
solstice. The warming temperatures dry out subsurface fuels (known as
duff) that is easily ignited by lightning. This usually occurs from
early June through mid-July. The third phase is Drought-driven Fire
Season, which occurs if temperatures remain high and precipitation
stays low. This season usually occurs in late July through the end of
August. The final phase of the fire season is called the Diurnal phase,
when nighttime temperatures drop and relatively humidity increase
during the shorter days from September through May. Fire has difficulty
igniting and spreading under the cooler, more humid conditions of this
phase, but large, late-season fire events are becoming more common with
increasingly warm temperatures later in the year.

According to the Alaska Public Lands Information Center, it is
important to remember that fire is a part of the natural environmental
cycle as well as a potential destroyer of life, property, and
resources. Fire is a natural part of Alaska’s ecosystem, with many
positive benefits. Not all wildland fires in Alaska are suppressed,
many are allowed to burn themselves out, especially in remote and
unsettled areas. All fires are monitored to assure they do not burn
unchecked towards areas where human life or development/structures
could be threatened.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 6/8/2022
Resolutions: 1km (1.3 MB), 500m (2.4 MB), 250m (10.9 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-06-10

--- up 14 weeks, 4 days, 20 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)