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Alaska surpasses 2 M acres burned

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Alaska surpasses 2 M acres burned


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaska has formally surpassed 2 million acres burned in wildfires already this season.

In line with the Alaska Interagency Coordination Heart Wildland Fireplace dashboard, 2,318,064 acres have burned in 426 complete fires. There are at present 26 new fires and 209 are energetic throughout the state. There are an estimated 482 personnel battling 10 staffed fires.

“Whereas this doesn’t assure a document hearth season this 12 months, it does illustrate how dry circumstances are throughout the state,” the Bureau of Land Administration’s Alaska Fireplace Service wrote in a weblog publish. “It’s additionally an indicator of how busy firefighters have been up to now this season with a number of months nonetheless left to go.”

The Lime Advanced of fires in Southwest Alaska contains eight staffed fires and 10 fires which are unstaffed, all of which had been attributable to lightning. The whole measurement of the mixed fires is 778,877 acres.

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The final time Alaska reached 2 million acres burned on July 2, 2015,” the hearth service wrote. “Greater than 5.1 million acres burned throughout the state throughout that fireside season, the second highest complete for acres burned up to now 20 years. For your complete 2019 hearth season, Alaska noticed about 2.6 million acres burned.”

The Nationwide Climate Service listed your complete Inside area in Pink Flag Warnings, and far of Southwest Alaska is underneath an Air High quality Advisory, whereas above-normal temperatures are anticipated for Southeast Alaska.

The Clear Fireplace has prompted evacuation discover of “set” for the communities of Anderson and Clear. All areas alongside Kobe Street and cabins on the Teklanika River inside two miles of the hearth perimeter have been issued “go” evacuation notices.

Further data on particular fires could be discovered at akfireinfo.com.

Copyright 2022 KTUU. All rights reserved.

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Alaska

Alaska Jewish community prepares to celebrate start of Hanukkah

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Alaska Jewish community prepares to celebrate start of Hanukkah


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Rabbi Josef Greenberg and Esty Greenberg of Alaska Jewish Campus, joined Alaska’s News Source to explain more about Hanukkah and how Anchorage can celebrate.

They will be hosting Chanukah, The Festival of Lights for “Cirque De Hanukkah,” on Sunday, Dec. 29, at 5 p.m., at the Egan Center.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

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A Christmas & Hannukah mix of winter weather

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A Christmas & Hannukah mix of winter weather


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A variety of winter weather will move through Alaska as we go through Christmas Day and the first night of Hannukah.

A high wind warning started Christmas Eve for Ketchikan, Sitka, and surrounding locations for southeast winds 30-40, gusting to 60 miles per hour. Warnings for the combination of strong winds and snow go to the west coast, western Brooks Range, and Bering Strait.

Anchorage is seeing a low-snow Christmas. December usually sees 18 inches of snow throughout the month. December 2024 has only garnered a paltry 1.5 inches. Snow depth in the city is 7 inches, even though we have seen over 28 inches for the season. A rain-snow mix is likely to hit Prince William Sound, mostly in the form of rain.

A cool-down will start in the interior tomorrow, and that colder air will slip southward. By Friday, the southcentral region will see the chances of snow increase as the temperatures decrease.

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The hot spot for Alaska on Christmas Eve was Sitka with 48 degrees. The coldest spot was Atqasuk with 23 degrees below zero.

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Santa catches a ride with troops to bring Christmas to Alaska village

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Santa catches a ride with troops to bring Christmas to Alaska village


YAKUTAT, Alaska — Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by flying reindeer.

Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau.

The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat’s case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.

Santa and Mrs. Claus talk to a child in Yakutat as part of the Alaska National Guard’s Operation Santa program Wednesday. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.

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Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit’s dress regulations.

The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.

In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.

Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.

Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.

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“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.

Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.

Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.

Alaska National Guard soldiers and airmen shovel the roof of a building in Yakutat. (Dana Rosso/U.S. Army National Guard via AP)

Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.

This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.

“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road.”

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After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village’s tiny airport. Later, it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.

Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.



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