Alaska is the largest US state. It is also the least densely populated. Among its great treasures the untouched wilderness
But much of that is now being destroyed. Wildfires are not a new phenomenon here, but
they are changing. They are becoming more frequent - and more
intense. So much so, that this year, local firefighters
here in Anderson were unable to get them under control
“When a fire happens and it gets bigger than the local unit can handle like here in
Anderson they have some local firefighters but they are very small. So when the fire gets bigger what they can
control. They would call for outside help.” And help has come from all over the US. Kate Airhart from Montana has been battling
blazes country-wide for more than 20 years. This is her fifth time in Alaska. She is now supervising a team of 500 firefighters
deployed to help control one wildfire… Sadly, this property couldn’t be saved. „It’s really when fires like this one
start in and around populated areas even a lightly populated area like this, that it
becomes a problem.” “Year after year you hear that I’ve never
seen a fire behavior like this before. And so I would say this abnormal weather is
the new normal. It’s getting harder to fight fires, resources
are getting scarcer and we’re dealing with winds like this”
This summer more than 264 individual fires have destroyed 1.25 million hectares of land
across the state. The blaze in Anderson is now under control,
but the damage is extensive, and the strong winds pose a risk too. This used to be a forest. We can see still smoke up there. The fire fighters are still trying to get
it under control. We can strongly smell it. Local people have had to evacuate their homes
– among them, Don and Dorothy. Winds were accelerating the blaze. “They took all the firefighters out because
it was so fast, it was a windy day, not as windy as today, but it was like 3-4 miles
it a few hours…” When they returned, the fire was under control. “It was kind of surreal. There was smoke and fires in the trees over
there burning. The firemen were with us they said your house
is safe!” This time they were lucky, but there will
certainly be wildfires here again, and experts say global warming may make them more severe. This time they were lucky, but there will
certainly be wildfires here again, and experts, like Prof Thoman say global warming may make
them more severe. “Lightning is the principal cause of wildfires
in Alaska. And so just a little bit of warming, just
a little bit of added moisture, more lightning strikes on ground that is dryer than it used
to be because the snow is melting earlier, giving it more chance to dry out. So, you’ve got a flammable landscape. we have this confluence of events, that are
being driven by the large scale warming” “We’re getting more and more fires that
are just incinerators. They turn whole landscapes that look like
the moon.” In the middle of the ashes hope remains, that
at least a part of this charred land might return to life… until the next wildfires
hit again.
