A Different World

     I have grown up in the fire world, and this will by my fifth year fighting fire for the Forest Service in Prineville, Oregon.  I have had the opportunity to travel all over the country to fight fire and see many amazing things, and every year I am even more blown away by the forces involved in wildfires.  Over the past several years I have had the opportunity to witness quite a bit of extreme fire behavior in many different areas, but to me the most interesting fire behavior occurred in Alaska.
     I have been to Alaska twice now and am still amazed at the differences in fuel characteristics and fire behavior up there.  It is completely different than what I am used to.  It seemed as if half of the time we were fighting fire while standing in 6 inches of water, yet fire behavior was still extreme.  Other times we would get rained on for 3 days straight, and then within a matter of several hours fuels would dry out and the fire would be off to the races again.  This is something that is definitely not common in Central Oregon.
     Another thing that interested me was the type of fuels present.  The ground fuels typically consisted of a one to two foot thick mat of organic material that could burn for weeks to months, even years.  Fires up there have been known to keep smoldering in this tundra mat over winter and restart the following summer.  Once you finally were able to dig through this organic layer, you would typically find a solid layer of permafrost.
     Going to Alaska has definitely opened my mind to the capacity of fire to burn in a variety of settings, and was easily one of my most memorable fire experiences.  I would love to go back.