Alaska is closing out what is likely to be the state’s seventh-biggest wildfire season since 1950, wrapping up a summer notable for record-breaking fires in the tundra of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the southwestern part of the state.
In all, more than 3 million acres have been burned by wildfires this year, according to the federal-state Alaska Interagency Coordination Center. The 2022 total of 3.08 million acres, as of Friday, is slightly less than Alaska’s sixth-biggest season, when 3.189 million acres burned in 1990, according to University of Alaska Fairbanks data.
The high 2022 total was driven in large part by the fierce fires in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, said Rick Thoman, a scientist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at UAF.
Those include the two largest Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta tundra fires on record, the 166,760-acre East Fork fire, which started on May 31, and the 89,909-acre Apoon Pass fire nearby, which started about a week later.