News-Miner Editorial
Smoke signals
Haze on northern horizon is a sign of wise preparation
Published Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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Stumble It!The dark smudge across the horizon north of Fairbanks on Monday rose from more burning trees. But, this time, the fires were set intentionally.
State fire officials are clearing and burning off selected sites around Fairbanks. The effort reduces fuel that could feed future wildfires.
The planned fires create some short-lived dense smoke, but it’s worth the brief nuisance to protect homes in subdivisions near town.
Smoke from wildfires was a constant annoyance in Fairbanks for about a month this summer. It aggravated breathing problems, interfered with aircraft flights and put an asterisk on bragging rights about our beautiful summers.
Such smoke is an inevitable result of a hot, dry weather. It’s more a nuisance than an immediate danger, though. It’s the flames below that cause real concern.
For example, the Hard Luck blaze, which climbed up the side of Murphy Dome, caused much worry in neighborhoods west of Fairbanks when it gobbled hundreds of acres in a few hours on Aug. 3. The fire, which eventually grew to about 13,000 acres, burned several cabins in the Chatanika River valley. Homeowners in the more populated subdivisions on the southeast side of the dome grew quite concerned.
Rain arrived to dampen the Hard Luck fire, but such timely intervention by Mother Nature can’t be assured next time. The firebreaks cut across the hills around Fairbanks reduce the risks from that sort of inferno.
With record warm temperatures and dry conditions during the past few days, some residents might have worried that the plumes rising north of town on Monday marked an unusually late resurgence of this year’s fire season. Fortunately, it was just some wise preparation for next year’s.
Community Discussion
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"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"! This is a good example of planning ahead, of fixing a situation before it becomes a problem. Controlled burns are a worthwhile & needed activity.
Boy howdy! We gots a pollution problem here! Tell ya what, let's burn a bunch of stuff! That'll fix it!
What if the forestry department had put out the Minto fire when it was spotted by a general aviation pilot at 1/4 acre. It would have been out in 24 hours and they could have relit it now. Total savings to taxpayers would have been in the tens of millions and there would have been no smoke this summer. That would have been forward thinking.
firefighters have to eat to.
Fairbanksgas... If they had put out the Minto Flats fire when it was 1/4 acre thousands of acres of moose browse would not be created and eventually all there would be out there is a bog. Fire is an integral part of the ecosystem around here... without it you would probably not enjoy living here so much. Those old black spruce bogs are almost devoid of animal life. You gotta break eggs to make an omelet; you gotta burn old woodlands if you want healthy woodland ecosystems.
I was sure that the smoke cloud was from a wood stove...
I thought the smoke cloud was from a rogue wood furnace.
This story needs to be sent to California,
who knows, someone there might get the 'gist' of it.
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