The Division of Forestry rescinded the Emergency Burn Closure that was put in place in early July as a result of the hot and dry weather the state was experiencing. However, just because the emergency burn closure was lifted, local, state, Native, and/or federal agencies could still have local fire restrictions in place.
Howie Kent with the Division of Forestry explains that the Kenai Peninsula is still under a burn suspension:
“The burn closures have everything to do with campfire restrictions and burn suspensions have everything to do with debris burning like burn piles, burn barrels and those kinds of things. We just had a statewide burn closure and that has everything to do with restricting campfires in only designated areas with metal rings and now we’re opening that up to allow more campfires to be in other locations as long as there’s good clearance and people are in attendance. The burn suspension, however, is still in place, which would include debris piles, burn barrels, and those other kinds of burning things.”
Kent adds:
“Until we receive significant precipitation because our duff layers are so dry. In fact, they’re historically dry, even drier than where we were at in 2019 when we saw the large Swan Lake Fire, we’re going to wait to lift the burn suspension for debris burning until a later time when we receive a lot more precipitation and the duff layers are able to get some of that wetting rain.”
Kent says that the Kenai Peninsula has been experiencing drought-like conditions for a significant period of time:
“We’ve been in a drought for so long here this summer. It’s basically, two months of no precipitation to speak of. I think in the last two, two and a half months, we’ve received maybe a quarter inch of rain here in the northern part of the Kenai Peninsula and a little bit more on the south end down towards Homer, but still not enough to really take away from those deep duff layers that are so dry. It’s going to take a really long soaking rain to really get those out of extreme conditions.”
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