After last week’s short spurt of precipitation, weather has turned warm and dry on the Kenai Peninsula again, and the Alaska Division of Forestry is urging residents to be cautious when burning outdoors.
Fire Prevention Officer Dan Govoni with the Division’s Soldotna Office…
Govoni: “We’ve had a number of different predictions both locally, statewide, and on a national level and if anyone truly knows the weather we can predict out about a week or two weeks but there’s nothing that says it’s going to fall that way. Right now, we’ve looked at a fairly dry spring, we’ve had some issues with grass fires and smaller debris piles. We’ve had some rain recently but the weather forecasters are predicting high pressure systems coming in and with that we’re going to get drying and warmer temperatures again so the wildfire danger may increase.”
Public Information Officer Andy Alexandrou says so far this year local Division of Forestry personnel has responded to 40 uncontrolled fires in our area.
Alexandrou: “We’re having a hard time convincing people to put their campfires out once their done doing their hot dogs and having a warming fire or coffee pots next to them. They ought to be put out, they need to be put out, you can do that by having a bucket, go down to the creek and put [the water] on the fire, stir it up with a stick, a shovel, but make sure it is out.”
Statewide, the Division of Forestry has responded to 150 fires and 145 of those were human caused and 71 warning citations for unpermitted burns issued.
Alexandrou says as we move into Memorial Day weekend, recreators of the Kenai Peninsula should check to see if any burn suspensions are put in place and continuously be cautious burning.