A hot spot left over from last year’s 195,000-acre Funny River Fire was found by mushroom hunters over the weekend.
On Sunday, May 17, Alaska State Troopers phoned the Division of Forestry office in Soldotna at 2:13pm to report a hot spot near Aurora Lake.
A Forestry firefighter crew of four responded to the area which was smoldering and creeping according to the division’s Howie Kent.
Kent: “It was a 20-foot by 20-foot area burning near the perimeter of last year’s Funny River Fire, basically within about 50 -feet of the line. We responded with an engine and prevention just to verify that indeed a hold over fire from the Funny River Fire and indeed it was so we took action, suppressed the fire and we’ll be monitoring that area and now that we know that we have those kinds of fires out there we’ll be monitoring the area and checking to see if there’s anything else.”
The ground crews extinguished the hot spot with about 40-60 gallons of water and mopped up the area.
Kent said with a fire of that size and the Kenai Peninsula’s most recent snowless winter,the hot spot was not a surprise.
