Interior Alaska's fire season is easing — but watch for the ones still smoldering

Interior Alaska caught a break this week. Most of the wildfires crews had been working are now controlled or out, and firefighters are packing up for home. But fire managers aren't standing down entirely: they're watching for holdover fires as the Interior warms and dries back out.

A holdover is a lightning strike that keeps smoldering — in the duff, a root, a punky log — for days or even weeks after the storm that started it, invisible until the weather turns. Then it flares. Last week's lightning across the Interior left an unknown number of them, and one just surfaced about 20 miles northwest of Allakaket. Managers expect it won't be the last.

For now, the statewide picture is calmer than it was a week ago. The sharpest fire danger has shifted to the Kenai Peninsula, while the Galena area and Seward Peninsula stay dry. Rain forecast for the Fourth of July weekend could settle the Interior down further.

Near Allakaket, the small fires that had crews on the ground — including the two-acre Henshaw Fire — are already controlled, and smokejumpers are demobilizing. The new holdover is the exception in a week that otherwise pointed toward quiet.