The Alaska Division of Forestry is already training the smoke jumpers, preparing for their potentially dangerous fire season.
Paul Pellegrini said the first training jumps started yesterday.
Pellegrini: “We’ve trained our people a little earlier this year. We have hand crews, some state, some federal, some private, and we’re trying to get them on around two weeks to a month earlier than normal. We have our air support folks coming on very soon so we’ll see the helicopter in Soldotna by the end of April.”
He said the light snow this year didn’t pack grasses down which means sparks could catch earlier and easier than usual and since the fire moved so quickly through the Funny River area last year there’s still plenty of unburned material through the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.