Holy smoke!
A combination of rising temperatures and dwindling spring snowpack have set Alaska up for a dramatic shift in wildfire activity. Fire season is also stretching 35 days longer compared to 60 years ago. There have been nearly twice as many large wildfires in the past two decades compared to the 1950s and 60s, including a rapidly growing number in the state’s Arctic region.
The 2015 Alaska fire season reached the 5-million- mark in the number of acres burned so far this season. A total of 743 fires have burned 5,013,053.4 acres.
We have seen warning everywhere along the Dalton Hwy, but wasn’t until we got to the Yukon river, that we realised how extensive it is. We drove over 250km under the smoke, and when we arrived in Fairbanks, the city was covered in it.