Vast Wildfires Choke Alaska City with SmokeANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Vast wildfires, burning in the parched spruce forests of interior Alaska, poured smoke into Fairbanks and prompted an advisory about unhealthy air in the state's second-largest city, state officials said.
``At its worst, visibility is down to one mile, where you can't see the hills nearby or make out the sun,'' said Toivo Luick, a chemist with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
``At its best, it's been hazy, kind of like smog ...,'' he said.
The advisory, which recommends that children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems stay indoors, is likely to remain in effect for days, and perhaps weeks, Luick said.
`These fires are quite huge,'' he said.The largest fire, according to officials managing the Alaska wildfires, is the lightning-sparked 153,700-acre Zitziana blaze burning near Manley, a village 90 miles west of Fairbanks. Its southern flank was halted when it reached the burned-out remains of a 1976 fire.
Another large blaze is the 101,000-acre Bering Creek fire southwest of Tanana, a village 135 miles northwest of Fairbanks. That was also sparked by lightning.
The 28,600-acre Bearpaw Mountain fire, burning south of Fairbanks near the northern boundary of Denali National Park, has expanded because of wind, officials said.
And the 2,800-acre Clear fire near Anderson, about 75 miles south of Fairbanks, has been contained. Firefighters were being dismissed from that blaze, according to the Alaska Fire Information Center.
Those four fires were the only ones among 33 burning in Alaska that were manned by firefighters. The firefighters were deployed to protect cabins and other private property.
Large, lightning-ignited wildfires are typical in the summer in interior Alaska. Summer daylight warms the area nearly around the clock, and the wildfires are considered part of the normal forest regeneration cycle.
As of Friday, 311 wildfires had burned nearly 584,000 acres in Alaska this year, the Fire Information Center said.
The Fire Information Center is part of the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, which manages fire resources for the Bureau of Land Management and the Alaska Division of Forestry.