Background Articles

The City of St. Mary’s and its two tribes, the Yupiit of Andreakfsiy and the Algaaciq Tribe, held a community meeting on June 9. There, resident Geraldine Beans said that community leaders chose an optional evacuation for elders and people who are considered vulnerable. Other residents will have to wait. The fire is the largest in the history of the Lower Yukon valley. It’s been burning for a week and a half, since May 31, and has grown to about 50,000 acres.

A survey is out and an open house is planned on May 14 for the Fairbanks North Star Borough's Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. A public survey is out, and an open house is planned for 4 p.m. May 14 at J.P. Jones Community Center in South Fairbanks.

A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), finds that black spruce trees — a key species on the boreal landscape for millennia — are losing their resilience and capacity to regenerate in the face of warming temperatures and increasingly frequent Arctic wildfires.

The new record beats the previous record set in 2012 and comes with weeks left to go in a devastating wildfire season.

For many U.S. communities, the bleak predictions laid out in a new United Nations climate change report are more a reflection of the present and not just what’s to come.

As of Tuesday, there were 299 wildfires burning in B.C., with 40 evacuation orders affecting approximately 5,724 people (2,862 properties), in addition to 69 evacuation alerts impacting approximately 32,076 people (16,038 properties).

Micah Hahn, an assistant professor of environmental health at the University of Alaska Anchorage, says while it might seem obvious that wildfire smoke causes health impacts, there had actually never been a nuanced, scientific look at those impacts. The biggest impact was for asthma-related emergency department visits. This was really across the board and across age groups and in geographic areas.

The state’s electric companies are seeking a shield for liability from some wildfires started by broken power lines.

There was a strong correlation between the observations of dead birds and wildfires and the toxic gases they produced, but not with the early winter storms.

Researchers predict a tripling of thunderstorms by the end of the century, which could lead to heavier rainfall and flash flooding, landslides and more lightning-sparked wildfires.

It doesn't look like Tromsø will get snow for a while.

Meteorologist Alex O'Brien dives into what has led to an extended fire season this year.

BRUNY ISLAND, TASMANIA (WASHINGTON POST) - Even before the ocean caught fever and reached temperatures no one had ever seen, Australia's ancient giant kelp was cooked.. Read more at straitstimes.com.

The first storm of the season not only tamped down the fire, it also began the process of flushing an unknown mixture of metals, toxic organic compounds, and other chemicals from the air, ash, and debris into the region’s creeks and rivers.

As Australia experiences record-breaking drought and bushfires, koala populations have dwindled along with their habitat, leaving them “functionally extinct.”

The director of Yukon Wildland Fire Management says firefighters had quite a summer, as conditions seem to be changing in the territory.

This summer has been filled with smoke for communities near the Swan Lake fire like Sterling and Cooper landing. So what does this mean for people's lungs and what are the long-term health effects?

The intensity of the smoke this week will be “hit or miss” depending on winds and fire behavior.

The McKinley fire, Deshka Landing fire and Swan Lake fire continued to impact Southcentral Alaska with highway closures and delays, smoke and questions about when residents evacuated from the McKinley fire would be able to return to their homes.

Homer-area neighborhoods have been told to prepare for potential evacuation. The Sterling and Parks highways have been partially reopened — but expect delays.