Wildfire crews battling fires across the state are getting some help from the Lower 48.
On Saturday night, 100 firefighters, mostly from Oregon, arrived in Fairbanks. The five, 20-person crews, will be sent to the fire lines in McGrath, Fairbanks, and possibly along the Kenai Peninsula, said Pete Buist with the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center.
"We only have a limited number of type 1 crews in Alaska and they've been working hard for a couple weeks," said Buist. "They're about to come up on their days off and so we needed to replace them."
The Lime Hills fire is currently the largest burning, but is no longer threatening Lime Village, according to the Alaska Division of Forestry. This season has been fairly busy for crews, with 28 lightening-caused fires that started on Thursday night alone. On Saturday, the number of acres burned so far surpassed the total number of acres burned during the entire summer of 2012. Buist says this season has been unusual.
"We've had a cold winter, a lot of snow didn't melt until late and then conversely, within a month we had extreme drying, very warm temperatures in the Interior and we just sort of vaulted very quickly into a pretty busy fire season," said Buist.
The interior has seen some moisture recently, but another drying trend along with lightening is forecasted for the next few days.
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