ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Temperatures in the low 50s and continued light rain have allowed firefighters on the 286-square mile Funny River Fire to go on the offensive, a spokesman said Wednesday.
The fire that has burned on the Kenai Peninsula since May 19 grew by only 2 square miles as of Wednesday morning as weather aided the 713 assigned firefighters.
“Whenever you get a break from the weather like this, it tends to have a calming effect on the fire and its progression,” spokesman Bernie Pineda said.
The human-caused fire has mostly been confined to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge but has burned four remote cabins and a lean-to.
Weather officials recorded four-hundredths of an inch of rain overnight. The temperature at 1 p.m. Wednesday was 52, with 82 percent humidity. That was enough to change conditions, Pineda said, that saw dramatic photos of flames reaching high into the sky and the creation of colossal, billowing clouds of smoke.
“We’re not seeing that kind of fire behavior with the wall of flames that we saw earlier,” he said.
Lichens, grasses, spruce needles and woody debris will still burn if ignited but have picked up enough moisture to smolder first, he said.
“You’re not going to see the effects like we did two to three days ago when the humidity was much lower,” he said.
Fire officials declared the fire 30 percent contained, with the bulk of the containment on the fire’s west side near Kasilof. Containment means firefighters are confident that fire breaks in place will not be crossed by fire.
Taking the offensive means moving off the breaks 300 feet into burned areas, using handheld infrared sensors to find hot spots and turning over soil to extinguish them, Pineda said.
“It’s a tedious practice, but it has to be done,” he said.
He compared hot spots in the duff, the organic material on the forest floor, to a burning cigar. You can’t see flames, he said, but if the wind blows, it could flare up.
“We’re trying to put out the end of the ’cigar’ by dousing it with water, once we find it,” he said.
Crews on Wednesday were not seeing much expansion of the fire. Any additional acreage burned, he said, may come from what firefighters ignite in controlled burns to keep the fire from spreading.
Across Cook Inlet, firefighters declared the Tyonek Fire contained on Wednesday. Most of the 112 people assigned to the fire were to be released and could be shifted to the Funny River fire, officials said.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.