The Funny River fire originally grew quickly due to high erratic winds, so we asked Michelle Weston of the Alaska Interagency Incident Management Team why the high winds on Saturday didn’t exacerbate the fire.
Weston: “We were very anxiously watching the high winds and had the crews sort of on standby but successfully it really tested the lines and when the operations managers say testing the lines what they really mean is that with the winds coming in it will blow up any hot spots that are still in the interior of the fire and we can address those so the good news is about the winds is that there was no new flare ups that happened so that was really positive.”
She added that the fire managers were positive that the lines that had been constructed around the western and northern flanks were secure.
Weston: “So they were happy we had the winds when we did just so we could test it and make sure there wasn’t anything new that would crop up after the team has left or after it has been downsized to a type 3 team.”
