The Tyonek Fire is now at 100% containment and remained at 1,906 acres burnt. According to Sarah Saarloos with the Division of Forestry, crews began the mop up efforts today.
Saarloos: “And what they will be doing is the mop up part of the fire and part of that is walking through the whole area of the fire and doing a grid and looking for any remaining hot spots, either seeing them, smelling them, feeling them and getting water to those areas and making sure that that whole area in that perimeter is cold.”
Saarloos said crews were released from the Tyonek fire to the Funny River fire before containment.
Saarloos: “We felt like the resources that we had on the Tyonek could do the job with being able to release a couple of the Lower 48 hot shot crews over to help out with the operation effort on the Funny River fire.”
Since containment they have sent an additional 3 or 4 crews to the Kenai area.
Sarloos added that that Division of Forestry was happy with the Tyonek firefighting efforts.
Saarloos: “But more importantly the communities of Tyonek and Beluga are very thankful that that fire is one hundred percent contained and now they can start enjoying their summer.”
No serious injuries occured on the Tyonek fire to date and only five non-residential structures were lost.