Climate Watch

By Rick Thoman Alaska Climate Specialist Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy International Arctic Research Center/University of Alaska Fairbanks

Days are getting long now as the seasons spin toward the June solstice. In Alaska that means wildfire season is soon at hand. During the off-season, the Alaska Fire Service works on updating the mapping of wildfires from years past, scouring old hand-written notes and manually examining decades-old satellite images for the tell-tale signs of wildfire burn scars on the land. For any individual

wildfire, the revised mapping north and east of Koyuk having

Barge caught after drifting

may take the acreage up or down, but burned more than once. However, for the Seward Peninsula overall, just four years, 1954, 1957, 1971 and

loose in Bering Strait

there has been an increase in mapped 1977 account for more than twothirds area burned since 1950. of that total. Unlike the YukonKuskokwim

For Alaska Fire Service purposes, Delta region, the the “Seward Peninsula” extends to Seward Peninsula has not seen a significant the east of Buckland and Koyuk and increase in wildfire in recent south to between Shaktoolik and Unalakleet. years. Whether 2024 brings any significant

Of course, wildfires in our region wildfire will depend on if we are episodic: during many summers see an extended period of warm dry there is no wildfire at all. The graphic weather between late June and late illustrates this nicely. Since 1950, July along with lightning from thunderstorms Alaska Fire Services estimates that to ignite the dry vegetation. wildfire has burned about 2.8 million acres on the Seward Peninsula, with some areas around Imuruk Basin and