Alaska's smallest fire year since 1995 was also one of its most destructive

Alaska burned about 88,700 acres in 2026, less than in any year since 1995. It also lost 50 homes.

The Mukluk fire started Aug. 17 from a downed power line outside Tok and covered 7,335 acres, a modest number by Alaska standards. State forestry counted 50 single residences destroyed, along with 108 outbuildings, garages and sheds. Climate specialist Rick Thoman, in a season recap published Thursday, called it "one of the most destructive fires in terms of societal impacts in Alaska history."

Across Alaska and the Yukon Territory together, about 103,000 acres burned, the lowest since 1977. More than 97 percent of everything that burned in Arctic North America this year was in Canada's Northwest Territories.

The quiet season was not for lack of lightning. Most northern wildfire starts with lightning, and light years usually mean fewer thunderstorms, but Alaska's strike count this summer was normal for recent years, concentrated in late June and early July. Thoman's recap points instead at what did not happen: no stretch of sustained hot weather to dry out the forest floor, though he calls that explanation speculative.

The largest fire of the year was the Tatlanika, on the Tanana Flats east of Anderson, at 38,400 acres. Lightning started it in late June and it stayed small until early August, when warm, dry weather let it run and pushed smoke into Fairbanks for a couple of days.

Fire season is not over everywhere. The state extended it through Sept. 14 in the Delta, Tok and Copper River areas because of dry conditions, so burn permits are still required there. At Tok, forestry is warning people to stay out of the burned debris, which can hold ash, sharp metal and chemicals.