Rain has halted a fire burning near the upper Kuskokwim River villages of Sleetmute and Red Devil. But fire officials warn that it will likely pick up again as skies get sunnier.
For now, after Monday’s rain, the Aghaluk Mountain Fire is only 1% active, according to a detection and mapping aircraft.
“So that means of that big perimeter of the 95,000-acre fire, 1% of it was putting off smoke,” said Alaska Division of Forestry spokesman Brentwood Reid. “They didn’t have any movement on the fire yesterday. It’s just kind of smoldering and creeping.”
The fire on Tuesday burned about 10 miles southwest of Sleetmute and just over 12 miles from Red Devil. Lightning sparked the fire on May 6.