Copyright 2006 Anchorage Daily News
All Rights Reserved
By ANDREW WELLNER
Anchorage Daily News (Alaska)
WASILLA, Alaska — As the snow melts and the grass starts to show, fire crews are gearing up, people are constructing firebreaks and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough is getting ready for wildfire season.
“Our folks have to be dual-trained and equally proficient in both (wildland and structure firefighting), and we spend a lot of hours training in both disciplines,” borough emergency services director Dennis Brodigan said.
Mike Keenan, assistant chief of the Central Mat-Su fire department, said his department has outfitted its trucks with longer wildland hoses. It has made sure all firefighters have wildland gear, which is lighter. And it’s running refresher courses.
Every borough fire department, from Sutton to Talkeetna, is doing the same or something similar, Brodigan said.
Keenan is coordinating the large controlled burn exercise set for Saturday. The borough plans to set fire to somewhere between 60 and 75 acres. Keenan expects participation from the Butte, Sutton, Chugiak, Anchorage, Meadow Lakes and Central Mat-Su fire departments.
The state Division of Forestry will also be on hand, providing both ground crews and a helicopter.
Of course all this is contingent upon whether the weather will cooperate and “the ground will let us burn,” Keenan said.
Bea Adler, the borough emergency management program coordinator, said her department is gearing up for a third season with their Fire Wise mitigation program.
Borough residents can sign up for the program and have inspectors come to their homes to look for fire hazards and let them know how to protect against invading wildfires.
The program includes eliminating volatile black spruce trees near the home, moving firewood and gas cans away from exterior walls, making sure wooden fences don’t connect to homes, and creating a path for the fire to follow.
The goal is to create 30 feet of defensible space around the home, sometimes more depending on geographic features.
And the program offers up to $600 to help homeowners who need to remove black spruce and dead trees from their land.
If a house catches fire, firefighters will try to save it, Adler said, but, “people need to learn that it is their responsibility to make it possible for the firefighter to save their house.”
So far, Fire Wise has surveyed more than 250 homes, Adler said. And this year looks to be just as busy as the last two.
The borough is also working to create firebreaks around borough facilities. A firebreak is an area of land cleared of fuels in order to stop or slow fires.
“The big focus for the borough right now and what the manager wants is that we make a lot of trees fall down,” said Debbie Broneske, who coordinates the program with the borough.
While some people may think of bare patches of land when they hear that, the borough is aiming at what they call shaded breaks, Broneske said.
All hardwood trees -- birch, cottonwood, aspen and the like -- over a certain height remain. But the resin-filled, incredibly flammable black spruce trees are taken out, as are dead white-spruce trees and other potentially hazardous fuels.
The trees are chopped into chips and left in the forest to provide nutrients to the remaining trees.
Broneske said her program has identified 39 projects to accomplish and are focusing on schools and other borough buildings.
The goal is to get the projects done in time to allow for a 10-15 year window before the borough has to re-treat the sites.
They’re also looking to protect evacuation routes. The borough is looking at treating private property where it abuts roads and other access or evacuation routes. But that, of course, is up to the landowner.