4:30pm Update
There is still no evacuation order but Brad Nelson with the Borough Emergency Management Services said there will be robocalls providing information to residents around the fire.
The robocalls are not indicating an evacuation at this point, only providing information.
4:00pm Update
The Division of Forestry has said that they are diligently working to provide more information to the public but Andy Alexandrou said it’s a slow transition process.
He also gave us approximate distances from residences.
Alexandrou said that scooper planes will be able to help this afternoon.
3:30pm Update
The Division of Forestry has said that the Funny River Road Fire is at least 1.5 miles away from any residences, 3.5 miles away from the Bear Creek Apartments in Kasilof, and around 4.5 miles away from the Sterling Highway in Kasilof.
Joe Gallagher with Homer Electric Association gave an update on the Funny River fire as far as its vicinity to power lines.
He also wanted electric customers to know…
The Alaska Interagency Coordination Center (AICC) reports that there have been 144 fires at 21,817.8 acres in the state. Human related activity continue as the main cause of the fires.
12:30 Update
As the Funny River fire expands to over 20,000 acres it is becoming obvious that weather plays a huge part in what will happen next.
We spoke with Mike Ottenweller with the national weather service in Anchorage who said weather will probably remain quite dry for the rest of the week.
Ottenweller: “We’re not really looking for any significant changes weather wise for the next several days. Probably the biggest thing that will stir up the winds a little bit more will come in the form of a short wave from the north late tomorrow later in the evening towards overnight hours, Thursday night into Friday morning but otherwise it will remain dry.”
Ottenweller said as far as smoke coverage, that all depends on the crews working on the fire.
Ottenweller: “When we talk about what smoke is going to do and how it is going to behave and obviously it depends on the fire and that is almost imppossible to predict and a lot of it depends on how the firefighters approach the scene and what they decide to let burn and what they decide to fight, so that said, right now we’re thinking the smoke is not going anywhere right now.”
He said the Kenai Airport is recognizing the smoke in the sky but has not grounded any flights at this time.
Ottenweller: “Looking at the airports observations there and they’re still reporting 10 miles and they do have the smoke mention but it’s not restricting any visibility to aircraft at this point.”
For more of last night’s fire coverage and links to information further back, click here.
*Additionally there have been reports of posting a State Trooper on Funny River Road to keep only local traffic coming through, we have yet to receive confirmation that this has taken place but crews at this time do not plan to close the road completely.
