A late-season fire near near Sutton is keeping fire crews on their toes.
The Moose Creek Fire was reported early Saturday morning, and as of Sunday afternoon is charted at around 216 acres.
Tim Mowry is a public information officer for the Alaska Division of Forestry.
He says most of the firefighting efforts are focused on the western perimeter, which is the most active.
“It’s been a real challenge with cold conditions – we’ve got hoses freezing up, pumps freezing up – and it’s nasty, nasty conditions,” Mowry said. “Twenty to 30 mile an hour winds that helping to drive this fire and just making it miserable for our guys out there fighting it.”
Mowry says about 50 personnel from nearly every agency with firefighting resources in the state are working the blaze:
“We’ve got the Division of Forestry, the Alaska Fire Service, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service,” he said. “We really had to beat the bushes to get personnel to get on this fire because we laid most of our personnel off, seeing as it is mid-October and fire season is typically over by now.”
Multiple local fire departments have also been called into action, and Mowry says helicopters and heavy equipment are also in use.
The Glenn Highway has remained open and no evacuation orders have been issued, but Mowry says driver should be cautious.
“There are gonna be a lot of firefighting personnel and firefighting equipment on the road,” he said.
The Palmer Correctional Center was under an evacuation advisory.
Because the Department of Corrections was already planning on closing the facility within the next few weeks, DoC spokesperson Corey Allen-Young says the department opted to move prisoners ahead of schedule to other correctional facilities around Southcentral and the Kenai Peninsula.
The Moose Creek Fire is burning about 5 miles south of Sutton.