Cool, Rainy Weather Helps Snuff Five Alaska Wildfires

Cool, drizzly weather helped more than 2,000 firefighters battle five separate wildfires across Alaska on Monday.

A blaze that swept across the communities of Big Lake and Houston last week, burning nearly 350 buildings and forcing the evacuations of 1,800 people, was expected to be fully contained by late Monday.

Residents in the 37,000-acre burn zone, about 30 miles north of Anchorage, were being kept from their homes until hot spots were extinguished, which could take until late today, officials said. About 1,300 firefighters were working on the fire Monday.

On the Kenai Peninsula, 85 miles south of Anchorage, a wildfire in a forest was stalled at 23,000 acres.

Crews had lines around 35 percent of the blaze, but Gary Anderson, of the U.S. Forest Service, warned that the fire could flare up again once warmer, drier weather returns.

A fire that began at Fort Greely, a U.S. Army base in Alaska’s interior, had burned 64,000 acres and a hundred firefighters were at the scene, while 200 firefighters battled a 12,000-acre blaze near the interior town of Central. That fire was nearly under control.

A 5,000-acre blaze near Tok, on the Alaska Highway, continued to burn, with 100 firefighters at the scene.