Sockeye Fire Press Conference June 15, 2015

Hi, good afternoon. So, uh, like Patty said, my name is Casey Cook. I'm the emergency manager for the Matsu Burro. I thought we were going to wait for everybody else to get here, but I'll try to speed this along until they get here. So right now, as of our last update, the fire is currently about 6,500 acres.

The perimeter of that fire is about 18 miles, and so within that there's some unburned spots, some houses and properties but around a total of 6,500 acres. We had about 200 responders last night and yesterday fighting the fire. We had about 95 Matsuburo, City of Palmer, and City of Houston firefighters up there starting about 1:30 yesterday afternoon till about 9 o'clock this morning. We pulled in a task force from Anchorage and Chugiak Fire fire departments as well to assist, get us through the night. We've got a couple hotshot crews that came up with Division of Forestry to, uh, to be out doing structure protection and putting out the fire and walking the flank lines and putting the fire out on those locations.

We had one firefighter that was treated or transported and treated to Matsu Regional Hospital for heat exhaustion symptoms. He was evaluated and released with no further complications. Right now our incident command post is still set up at Willow Fire Station 12-1. Our incident commander right now today is Malin Green, who is in a unified command structure with Division of Forestry. We've requested, or through that unified command, we've requested a Type 2 Incident Management Team, which Tom Kurth will be able to talk about when he gets here and how that works and how the borough works in conjunction with that incident management to put out the fire, and the borough handles borough business with evacuations and supplies and support of resources.

So that's kind of all I've got. So I'm open to questions from anybody, and so we'll just go around and raise your hand or let me know and I'll notice you.

Are the hotshot crews on the ground now? There are several hotshot crews on the ground now and there are several more being flown in. That would be another one, good one for Tom Kurth. He would be able to tell you exactly where they are and who they are. Casey, we heard something about several thousand pounds of explosives at a couple of gravel pits.

Can you tell us anything about that? Right, so we have two explosive depots. Up in those areas about mile 77 and 68, you know, thereabouts. Austin Powder owns at least one of them. Those are, are pretty well defended.

They were going up this morning at about 7 to assess and mitigate anything if they needed to, to pull those explosives out of there or if they were going to be able to protect those in place. And so from what I've heard, that they, they've left them there. Because they feel confident that they're going to be able to protect that and not have an explosion. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] So I don't have a confirmed number, and so what we're waiting for right now is the fire behavior to die down so that we can put our assessor crew in and our damage assessment crew in to go in and enter those and do some damage assessments. So once we get— once the fire behavior dies down, we'll be able to go in and get an actual number.

And then as we release that information to the public and be able to allow people to come back into their neighborhoods and their roads, we're setting that up through the EOC so that we don't have mass type of folks coming to look at houses that have been burned. So we know that we have lost homes, but we're not ready to let you know because we don't know exactly how many there are.

Go ahead, Nick. Yeah, that hurts. Can you just say, like, at a general level, like, what you guys are worried about today and sort of at a general level how sort of what the biggest concern is for you guys? Sure. So today's fire weather is predicted to be hotter, drier, and windier than it was yesterday.

So that's our major concern is now we're fighting a large fire with poor fire behavior conditions. The location of the fire is also very concerning because now it's into Willow proper, and so we've got multiple residents, multiple businesses, infrastructure as well. If the wind picks up and starts kicking and, and doing those types of things and running and making runs into those, those areas— so yesterday we had, you know, it's relatively a smaller population and a smaller building footprint. And now as we get closer into Willow proper and closer into Nancy Lake where there's more homes and more people, so you have more structures. And so if it hits that and it starts running, we're already pretty depleted on resources.

And so that's kind of the, the guessing game and the magic wand that we're trying to not have to wave and trying to stop it before it gets there. But a lot of it depends on the fire behavior and the weather, what we're going to— so they're doing Protective measures right now, they're doing some dozer lines and some back burning to try to mitigate that from occurring and protect the sides, and then so they'll be able to attack the flanks and move in and get the front of the fire as well. They're hoping to do that before it gets super windy and super hot and more dry. And how worried are you guys about it ultimately sort of expanding to like a much broader area than, you know, Willow proper? Is it sort of like that's the— that's sort of what the way it looks right now, or is there a pretty significant concern that it could end up down in Houston or further than that?

So my job is to do worst-case scenario planning. So I— that's what I do. And so I look at all of that. So I look at moving shelters from one station to the next. I look at bringing more people in, not only with Division of Forestry, you know, National Guard assets, other state assets.

Pulling in borough assets to be able to go in and move, and municipality of Anchorage assets. And so we're looking at all those options to make sure that we have not only a Plan B and a Plan C, but then a Plan D, you know, and so on down the line. So that, that way, if hypothetically it moves past Willow into Houston, you know, and further down, um, we're going to know that well before it does. And so we're going to, we're going to keep extending our evacuation range further and further as we need to, and so people should be aware that we're going to keep doing that until we feel that we have the fire under control and can call it contained.

Do you know how many people have been evacuated and are people cooperating at this point? Sure, so yes, people are being very cooperative. I went to the shelter this morning in Houston and had about a half an hour conversation with the folks up there. Very, very cooperative, you know, very understanding of the stress that's being placed on, on the firefighters and the resources that we have.

We've got about 210 folks that were sheltered, not only— so about 160 in Talkeetna, folks that were driving south and weren't able to continue driving south and didn't want to turn around and drive all the way back to Fairbanks. So about 160 were put up there, and then the remainder were put up at the Houston Middle School by the Red Cross, who did an excellent job sheltering those folks and making sure that they were safe and comfortable and, you know, had something to eat and something to drink and a nice place to lay down and rest for the evening. I'm sorry if you said this earlier, so is it still at 6,500 acres from the last update? Yes. Okay, and then, uh, containment search, not really?

So yeah, so it's still at about 6,500 acres, so there wasn't a whole lot of forward movement. You know, they might have moved 5 or 10 feet here, you know, those types of things because of the fire behavior last night and the cool weather. So we're still calling it about 6,500 acres. It's not going to be precise until we can get out and walk it. Right now it's probably still zero contained because we're still fighting a very strong front of the fire.

When you expect crews from the lower Boise to arrive As far as I know, they've been arriving all night and they'll continue to arrive today. And how many? Once again, that'd be a Tom Kurth question who just walked in the door. So I can answer some more questions and we'll get Tom up here and those guys. But any more questions for, for me?

Go ahead, Matt. Um, yeah, uh, what, um, what kind of, uh, investigation has been done this far? Reports of the fire started at the home where people have been shooting off fireworks? None. So priority right now, life safety, you know, property conservation, and then we deal with everything else after that.

So once lives are saved, once the fire's out, then we'll go back to look to see what caused it. Right now, that's not a big— our major concern.

So go ahead. —Can you say, I mean, how did the— does it seem like the conditions in the, like, low-snow winter, how does that seem to be affecting what's happening now? So we had a dry winter, we had a dry spring.

It takes a lot of moisture to get, you know, a lot of rain to get a wetting rain, and we haven't had a lot of that either. And so that combined with the fuel sources, which is all black spruce, dry duff, dry ground, the fire is moving fast, it's moving very hot, it's just ripping through the patches of black spruce, probably.

20 Or 30 miles an hour. Assemblyman Halter might be able to make some comments on that. He did a tour yesterday, but it's, it's definitely weather-driven and fire behavior-driven at this time.

So anything else? A lot of residents in the borough want to know how they can help. Can they help people in the shelters or you know, what can the average person do? Yes, so a donation center has been set up, or a donation collection point has been set up at My House, and I think the Red Cross might be helping with that as well. Connie?

My House is definitely going to be a good location for items of sorts. The Red Cross shelter is asking that no donations come to the shelter because we have no way to handle the donations. Yeah, and the borough is going to— the borough is going to echo that we're not accepting donations because then we would have to deal with the donations after that. So what we'll do is we'll work with, um, Mr. Kurth, wherever he went, and we'll look at setting up a disaster fund like they do at the state level. So we'll work with the state with them as well.

And so if people want to donate, so usually the best thing for those donations is money. To be able to get people back on their feet and buy the things that they need instead of getting, you know, 10,000 Q-tips donated and now what do we do with 10,000 Q-tips. So once we get that up, we'll get that out to folks and be able to put that on to the media to let them know how to donate.

Is there one in the back there, Stefan? Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I had a question about a family that lives up in Hatcher Pass and the possibility that they might be evacuated over the top. Corral officials have repeatedly said Hatcher Pass is not open at this time. I've heard some radio traffic that says that it's open to large four-wheelers.

Can you guys clarify what's the status there? Can anybody get out that way? I don't know what the current situation of Hatcher Pass is, but you don't really need to be going over Hatcher Pass right now. The road is still open for folks leaving Willow Fishhook. They can go down to the parks, take a left, and drive into Wasilla or, you know, down this way into Palmer.

They don't need to go over the pass. Troopers will let them go, leave Willow Fishhook Road on the parks.

Anything else for me?

Okay. I think, Patty. Is Tom Kurth here? Is that Tom right there? Yep.

Where's Tom? So next up we're going to have Tom Kurth with Division of Forestry.

See, we're going to bump them to lower. I wanted to acknowledge our borough mayor, Larry DeBelvis, is right over there. So we're going to have Manager John Musial. Good afternoon. This morning I signed a disaster declaration for request for assistance, for state assistance, and I'd like to read that this afternoon.

Whereas, commencing on June 14th, 2015, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough sustained severe threats to life and property loss from a wildfire in the Willow area. And whereas, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough is a political subdivision within the state of Alaska. And whereas, the following additional conditions exist as a result of this disaster emergency: disruption of interstate transportation and tourism, electrical power interruption for prolonged periods, property loss and damage, environmental impacts due to wildfire. And whereas the severity and magnitude of the wildfire emergency is beyond a timely and effective response capability of the local resources, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough has expended approximately $48,000 during the first operational period. Therefore, be resolved that the Borough Manager of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, does declare disaster emergency per Alaska Statute 26.23.140 to exist in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough effective June 14, 2015 at 12 noon.

Furthermore, it is requested that the Governor declare a disaster emergency to exist as described in Alaska Statute 26.23.020 and provide state assistance to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in the form of public assistance, individual assistance, and other emergency resources to help the borough in its response and recovery from this event. Further, the undersigned certifies that the Massachusettettan Borough has expended its local resources as a result of this disaster emergency. Signed by myself. We have had an earlier meeting this morning with the governor. He is here.

I am very pleased with the response of the state office, Alaska Forestry, the resources the bureau has thrown at it, and our partnerships that we have with the city of Wasilla and our school district and other local community partners who are affecting positive outcomes in this disaster. I'll have any questions that you may have.

Yes. Can you expand on the $48,000? What is that going towards? $48,000 Is really going to, at this point in time, supplies and resource rentals, that sort of thing. This occurred prior to midnight last evening.

Money is kind of rolling in. We do have some authority to expand before we have to go back to the assembly to get further approval, but this is a requirement of the emergency declaration that we are spending borough resources. So that was from like 1:15 when it was first called in until midnight? Yes. $48,000?

Yes. Okay, thank you.

So we're awaiting Tom Kurth, but we're going to have Assemblymember Vern Halter, who was on the scene last night.

Hello everybody, I'm Vern Halter from Willow, and I guess I'll just say it's very somber up in Willow right now. It's a very serious fire, and I haven't had much sleep, so you'll have to kind of have a little patience with me. The fire started up at Saukhye Road above Cache Wittner Lake about 1 o'clock yesterday. It, you know, went from a small fire up to an acre, up to 10 acres, up to 200 acres, up to 1,000 acres really rapidly. It crossed the Parks Highway at Capitol Speedway right there, and then it was on the east side of the Parks Highway coming down along the Parks Highway.

It made a crossing back over the Parks Highway about a mile to a mile and a half, 2 miles, just north of Willow Creek. Casey Cook, who just spoke to you, I was in his command truck. We drove through it when it was crossing. It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. I actually got scared.

And fire on both sides. The ditches are burning. The trees are burning. Houses. So I just want to thank the firefighters.

Matsuboro. You know, I could see trucks in these houses putting water on these houses. And they saved a lot of them. I know of at least 12 to 15 houses that are lost. A lot of my friends, Dee Dee Johnroe and that whole neighborhood, I used to have a house there, that's just leveled really to tell you the truth.

I think we moved 400 to 500 sled dogs in a matter of 2, 3 hours, horses and other animals south. I think Martin Boozer has 400 sled dogs there right now. And it's, you know, my worry right now, they're trying to, if it splits and goes east side of Willow plus west side of Willow, you would have two different fires you're trying to fight at the same time. That would be a, that's a huge worry. So they're trying to, along the railroad line which is coming down along the Parks Highway east side, They're trying to do a fire bulldoze, a fire line out there, stop it right there.

I was at the community center, Willow Community Center, most of the afternoon and night. And I honestly thought for a while that that community center could burn last night. But fortunately, they made a stand there. You know, the airport's right on the right there. And stopped it coming from down through there.

And then it went west and then down through Crystal Lakes a little bit. And that's kind of where it is right now. And, you know, the wind, it's over 80 in Willow right now, 80 degrees. And the wind was picking up when I left 2 hours ago, or starting to pick up. You could see the breeze starting to pick up in the trees.

And so it's a tough one to say. I really appreciate the governor flying up there, and he just, he'll probably tell you he saw it from the air just now. And, you know, there's thousands of homes along those lakes right there. On the east or the west side of the Parks Highway. And then right along the east side of the Parks Highway, that's where your heavy population is and concentration of homes.

Of course, Houston, you know, it has that— you know, the Millers Reach fire, of course, started south of us a little ways in Willow. But it has that same southerly direction it wants to kind of go. And so it's a very worrisome thing at this point in time. And I guess the weather is not going to change. We had a weather briefing an hour ago.

The weather doesn't want to change for 2, 3 days. You know, hot and dry. And of course, the wind's going to pick up during the day. And I'll bet the wind's concentrated more 2 to 6, 7 PM, it seems like. And of course, they've got tankers.

Here down from Fairbanks, up from Kenai. There's tankers coming from British Columbia, is my understanding. There's other fires in the state of Alaska, but this is a— I believe is the number one priority right now because of the concentration of the population in the borough. And, you know, it's just—. It's a—.

I was— I want to again thank all the firefighters and stuff for putting their lives on the line.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I just landed from flying over the fire. This morning I received this request for the declaration of disaster from Mr. Muzi on behalf of the Matsu Burro. I met with the mayor this morning and we had a briefing before I went out to look at the fire. It is significant.

What's really significant is a group of the effort on the firefighters to do what they can to protect the structures that are there. It was amazing to see the number of homes that were there that you know only were there because people risked their lives to fight for those homes. It's pretty powerful. So, I mean, the fire itself is very powerful, but the human response has been, I think, equally powerful to me to fly over and see what's been burned and what's been left. Boy, we are so sorry about the losses of structures that have taken place.

I'm very pleased there have been no loss of life. I know we lost some animals in the process, and that's most unfortunate. You know, the smokejumpers jumped out just below us while we were flying over, and that's something to see as well. I mean, talk about putting your life on the line. They're actually jumping into as close to the fires as they safely can.

So the response has been just huge. My ask was, what have you asked for that you've not received? Because that's what I want to know about. How can we help? And it's been phenomenal, the response from around the state.

There's areas of the state where there are other fires going on, up in the Tok area right now, so we can't bring everything here. But this has significant potential. There's a couple of ways I can respond to the request for declaration of disaster. One is to begin a process and sort of study it, and I'm not. I'm accepting it today.

It's deserved. It's— I'm sorry, it's deserved because what you've done so far, this is— we will take immediate action. We will take the— we'll use the step that's available to me to verbally say we accept this and make this a declaration of disaster. It is something to behold, to fly over that and see the And what's, again, most impressive to me is what's left that didn't get burned. And that's only because people have responded and shown up in the middle of the night.

My plane landed about 1:00 this morning, and you could see the glow from that area. But to actually fly over it today and see it up close was very, very impressive and frightening as well. The source of fuel that's available to it is a concern. I don't begin to talk to any specifics about the technical The nature of it potentially splitting and going one direction or another direction, the river is on one side. I'd say the road was open.

It was being convoyed through. My understanding is that the railroad is still— remains open. So a tremendous, tremendous effort of outpouring in this region to— and unfortunately this isn't the first time there's been a situation like that. So it sounds to me like there's a whole lot of lessons learned from before, and I couldn't be more proud of our effort. As a state, the National Guard, what they're doing.

We saw the location where they're dipping water and picking them up in 3,000 or 4,000-gallon buckets and dropping them near the fire. So everybody's doing what they're supposed to do. There's new crews that are coming in tonight, and there'll be new— I think 5 new crews tomorrow is what I'm told. And so I'm happy to answer non-technical questions, but I tell you, it's really quite something to see the— Agencies working together. I spent some time, I got a briefing yesterday about every 2 hours.

I don't know when Dean Brown sleeps, but my last one was at 1:22 this morning and I got my next one at 6:02. So it's just nonstop around the clock. So much to be thankful for thus far, but I think the, you know, there's more help on the way. And so they'll be here tonight, they'll be on the scene tomorrow morning is what I'm told. Happy to answer any questions.

Matt, looking quite casual today. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Is there anything that, you know, you think the state needs that it's sort of requested that it hasn't gotten at this point? I think that what my inquiry has been all morning, have you asked for something that's not been available? And they've been very, very pleased with the response from every agency that they've asked any for. I know that there's response vehicles coming out from different parts of Alaska.

Some parts need to stay. We know the Interior up north is going to be— you know, has some issues as well. So being a little bit careful about that. But there's been an outpouring across the state as far as I know. So, we're good.

Thanks very much.

So this is Tom Kurth. He'll be able to answer questions about the Division of Forestry efforts.

Okay, good afternoon. Thank you for the Governor's response here. It's been very helpful in helping formulate a appropriate response here. My name is Tom Kurth. I'm the fire program manager for the Division of Forestry, but I'll be acting as the Type 1 incident commander for this particular incident.

What that means is we're bringing in a team of managers who have specialties in things like operations, logistics, finance, safety, information, and those managers all come together and we'll have an in-briefing here at 1600. At which point we'll go and help supplement the forces that are already on there. So the initial attack forces are out there. There's over 100 of them in various places throughout this fire. They're somewhat in a defensive mode, protecting structures, evacuating areas, retreating, returning, coming back, and making sure that the structures that are intact there stay protected.

And then we'll start a more offensive mode when we get additional supplemental crews and aircraft in here. And they'll start to put a line around that. We have heavy equipment on the very north end of the fire where we'll anchor. So that's building a place where we feel safe to operate from. That's being done all the way up there at the tip of the fire.

So we like to anchor, flank, and pinch. We'll use natural barriers such as the river, the road, the railroad, that sort of thing to try and contain this fire as we get an opportunity here. The weather forecast I think you've already had, it's not very favorable. We expect hot, dry conditions. Our remote weather stations are already showing very dry conditions out there.

Once the relative humidity start to drop down below the, you know, like 30%, which they already have, and as they drop even further, that's where the black spruce, the primary fuel type out there, begins very volatile. And then you get the wind coming up in the afternoon that starts to push it. So our crews, particularly on the south end there, will be certainly challenged here as the afternoon progresses. I, I'm not sure you've been told, but we have 5 hotshots, uh, crews coming in from the lower 48 in addition to the crews that are already out there. That takes a big jet to pick those folks up.

They'll be placed in some of our critical areas as soon as they get on scene here. The Type 1 hotshot crews, why we bring in those, they're very independent. They can operate with limited supervision, and at a point where we are with a fire like this, that gives them, or at least gives us a sense of security that they can go out there and do their job safely out there. So there's people positioned on the south end of the fire— or correction, on the north end of the fire— and then on some on the west end of the fire where I think it's Crystal Road is to do some structure protection. They're also on the, the east side of the fire along the railroad area there to try and capture some of those spots that are— if you've seen how a fire progresses in a windy situation, it tends to develop its own weather in front of the fire, and then it starts throwing spots.

And those are, you know, 100 feet out there, 200 feet out there. They can start to get out there a quarter mile. And that fire that was moving yesterday has laid a bunch of those spots out there. So we have to try and contain those first, develop a good line, a place where we can take advantage of the terrain and the fuel type there, and get, uh, get that fire corralled as soon as possible. So that's where we stand right now.

I'm not sure if you have specific questions, but we'll be more than happy to answer those. We're going to put an incident command post in the Houston area, I believe at the Houston School. That gives us a little bit of buffer there because the Willow area was actually threatened last night. It's very intimidating when that wind starts blowing and that column leans over and a lot of what's out there starts to become obscured by that heavy smoke. And so it looks like that fire is progressing.

Sometimes more rapidly than it actually is, but it certainly is intimidating when those things are happening out there. So that's what we look like right now. And we have a very good Air Force that's been supplemented here. I think you saw 3 Blackhawks out there. We have 1 scooper.

And I think at least 3 retardant ships. We'll be supplementing those from Canadian resources here today. So we'll get another Convair group up here. And those, you know, there's a point when we can get that retardant down, but if it starts blowing too hard, then even our aircraft are handicapped some. But we'll have plenty of aircraft and crews to get started on this operation.

And we do have the advantage, it looks like it's running into that— I think it's Nancy Lake area, and so we'll have some advantage there. Off on the east side, it's got some swampland in there. We got smokejumpers that have landed in there. They'll be bringing a boat with them and they'll be in the Willow Creek area looking at structures and protecting structures there. So any questions from you folks?

Yeah? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Well, certainly this area is familiar with the Millard's Reach fire. That was the greatest loss of structures that we have had for the Division of Forestry. And that was 19— Casey? What is it?

'96. And so certainly similar conditions, you know, hot, dry, windy. You know, that wind is really our primary enemy out there because that supplies those fires with plenty of oxygen. And, you know, any fire is a fuels, weather, topography sort of thing. And when it starts blowing out there, that's where the problem starts because it can— If you're on a front line of that in a— you know, an initial tack at the head of the fire, that's where it can go over your head and spot beyond you there.

But certainly Miller's Reach is our best example of that. But, you know, loss of structures is— that's occurring with some regularity but not generally in large numbers. So we're fortunate there. It's just typically the Alaskan landscape is dotted with these individual homes out there. So, you know, having defensible space around those areas so that a firefighter can go in there and defend those areas is critical at times like that.

And that means open space and no ladder fuels to take the fire up into the trees and that sort of thing. So those homes sometimes will survive when a fire passes through there. You know, sometimes that fire is going so fast it'll just go right by them. And the danger becomes, you know, any lingering fire that's left to smolder in there. And that's what we'll be looking for when we kind of do this retreat-return sort of— that will be a strategy that we're doing right now.

You know, our number one focus is certainly protecting lives out there and making sure the places are evacuated. And then structures after that. You know, we don't want to downplay the structures thing, but that— those structures can be replaced. So that is the good news. Whereas human life, that has a finality to it.

We're to the point we think we have the evacuation taken care of and now protecting structures is where we're at. Yes? Yeah, Matt Hurston, Alaska Dispatch News. I have a couple questions. One is, I think we heard earlier there was a reference to a Type 2 incident management team.

You just referenced Type 1. Can you explain what's going on there? Well, we have various levels of complexity from a 1 through 5. And the most complex fires are Type 1. And in Alaska, we have 2 Type 2 teams.

And we're on a rotational basis. And a typical fire is oftentimes in Alaska is a Type 2 fire just from the standpoint it's usually logistics that we're dealing with, geography, supplies, and that sort of thing. And then when you get more complicated with your urban interface structures, road corridors, you know, these transportation corridors. Once you start closing those down, that affects the tourism industry, a train's trying to get to a bus who's trying to get to a plane. There's contractors moving through.

So we raise the complexity level up. And what we do with the Alaskan teams is we take both teams and combine them to take our Type 2 incident command teams and turn it into a Type 1. We're all qualified at both levels. And so, you know, we're oftentimes on a national rotation, so we are capable of fighting fighting fire in the lower 48 too. But it's nice to have the Alaskan experience because people know the geography, they know the fuel type, they know who they're working with.

And so we are moving to the Type 1 level to combine and get our best experienced firefighters. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] How much— like, how far are you guys worried about the fire moving today? I mean, can you give us some sense of, you know, what's the area that's immediate risk and what's the area that's, you know, at risk in the next couple of days or the next week? Sure. And I think— let's see, we're on day 2 here, right?

So you got an idea of what this fire can move in 1 day. That's, you know, that's— something like 7-mile. That's how— oftentimes, you know, it'll push down with that wind. So out it goes at 7 miles. Then you get a different wind direction.

Off it goes out to the east or the west, or it starts pulling— pushing or pulling on, you know, various hotspots. And so there's plenty of potential out there. Now, we're looking for someplace, you know, like I said, we're getting an anchor point at the tail. But we're also looking at areas where we might be able to take advantage of natural barriers. Again, it's a fuels, weather, topography thing.

So we're in flat land in a lot of that area, but a lot of that fuel is continuous. Any place you have that continuous black spruce, you know, that's a very fire-prone species. Gasoline on a stick for, you know, if you want more spectacular language. But that stuff is carried, you know, it'll carry a fire and it'll move. And as I was talking about spotting, so here it goes, you know.

There goes spotting ahead of you. Those spots combine. They get pulled back into the fire. Get pulled back. And out they go.

And get pulled back. So that's how those fires grow in rapid succession. Now, the burn period here. That's something Alaska is very unique for. You know, that's at what point these fires become active.

And now, because we have these long days, right? It'll burn well into, you know, in the Lower 48, some of those fires might calm down at 10 o'clock. We'll burn into 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 1, 2, something like that. So the longer burn periods allow those fires to grow during that, you know, that long day there. So I think this fire was started around 1 o'clock, and when you see something like that, when it starts to get active early in the day, early in that burn period, those are the problematic fires for us like that, just because they have lots of time to grow.

Yeah, I was wondering how large is a hotshot crew? You mentioned 5 of them that are on the way, is that correct? Yes, a hotshot crew is a 20-person crew, so that represents 100 people which we're able to get on a jet to bring up here. Again, they're our most experienced firefighters. With them comes supervision, so they can operate independently.

They also bring sawyers with them so that, you know, that's how we establish saw line with— they might have as many as 6 sawyers with them and saws so they can— they're used to working around timber, large timber, and that sort of thing. And then they also can do what you know as burning out, so they're capable of doing that independently. So they may see, you know, if the fire looks like this, like it's poked in like this, and so they're going to tie this together, this together, this together, and this together to give us a straight line. And then they'll burn that section out in there to secure that so that they take that— all that fuel out of there. And that gives them a good solid line.

We like to say it's not a good line until it's a black line, which means we have taken that capability of that fire to advance out of there by removing the fuel. Now, one of the disadvantages, or why this country is so fire resistant, is because this duff layer, you know, if you're in the lower 48, again, you scratch a line and out comes the dirt. Here, it's maybe 2 feet of duff there before you get to a mineral surface. So you— it's best done with heavy equipment because then you can get right down to that mineral base down there, which doesn't allow the fire to creep. So we— Our fastest line is built by a saw line, tying it together, and then burning out those edges there to make it a nice even line.

So we don't have to tear that duff apart and go down to that mineral surface. Sometimes you find permafrost out there too, and that gets real soggy and wet on you. So—. I'm sorry, this has already been said, but is this the number one priority fire in the country right now? Well, it's the number one priority fire in Alaska.

However, our fire season differs a little bit from down there in the lower 48. Again, we are— our busiest month is actually May, but our biggest month is in June, so that's when we have the biggest acres. And we are fortunate that we can pull up supplemental workforce from the lower 48 because their fire season.

They're not engaged yet, which is usually, it'll get earlier and earlier here, but end of June, July, most likely August or something like that. So we call the Canadians and say, hey, we need a tanker group up here. And they say, OK, we'll get you one today, something like that. We'll get you 5 hotshot crews. We'll get you this, we'll get you that.

So we're very fortunate to have that capability to us. So we become the number one priority.

We'll also be looking at a so-called FEMA declaration. You'll be hearing about that, but that's a— that is a declaration that helps pay for state resources done by the federal government. So if we have a certain threshold of values at risk out there, which we'll certainly pass in this, then they will help supplement the firefighting effort with income there. And don't confuse it with FEMA recovery, you know, for home replacement or something like that, because you'll hear the word FEMA tossed out there. But it's really— they are supplementing our firefighting costs with a fire management agreement and grant like that.

We have to get approval for that. So that's what we're in the process of doing right now.

Okay, well, we'll put together some public meetings, most likely up further north. We'll determine where the need is, but part of our responsibility is keeping you, the public, informed and telling you where this fire is, what it's doing, where it's moving, that sort of thing, so that you can make informed decisions out there. So we'll try and do that up in the Willow and Houston area to let folks know exactly what's going on. So And then we have plenty of information that we're placing on websites. You can see a map.

We're on Facebook. We're on akfireinformation.com, is it, I guess. And so those are places where you can go and see how this fire is progressing. And trying to keep ahead of the information game here is one of the things that we're trying very hard to do so that you folks— it takes the pressure off our dispatchers if we can get that information out to you. So we'll be doing the best we can to keep that information flow going to you guys.

Mm-hmm. [SPEAKING SPANISH] Well, we're being in-briefed today, and the sooner the better. So I'll look maybe for even tomorrow night if we can do that. So the sooner, the better, because nobody likes dealing with the unknown out there. We'll do the best we can there.

Okay?

Okay? Thank you. Oops, you got your map. There's about 25 copies of the disaster declaration at the back for reporters. We're going to post it online for other folks, if that's okay.

And the borough website, as well as the Facebook page, has been continuously updating and will continue to. We do have a call center also. It's on your sheet out there with numbers, manning and helping in the EOC. On donations, we're going to work more on that and get more information out to the public on where you can drop in and how to do so. All right?

Thank you. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].