State fire officials say about 292,000 acres throughout Alaska burned this summer, consumed by 495 fires, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Monday. While that's a big number, it is far short of the roughly 1 million-acre average since the state began keeping records in 1939.
When it comes to wildfires, the past decade has been particularly busy, including a record 6.6 million acres burned in 2004. The 1.1 million acres burned in 2010 was slightly above average.
This year's fire season didn't initially look like it would be a slow one. Record-high temperatures and dry conditions in May set the scene for a dangerous summer. The Hastings Fire near Chatanika and the East Volkmar Fire northeast of Delta Junction both sparked during Memorial Day weekend, with the former eventually drawing more than 1,000 firefighting personnel.
But a monthlong rainy stretch in late June and early July brought those and other blazes down to a simmer. By mid-July there wasn't a single fire that was being staffed in the state.
There's still a chance more fires will happen in September, but it's typically a time of year when the weather keeps significant blazes at bay.
Humans started more than twice as many fires as lightning this summer, but those started by lightning were the biggest. Human-caused fires burned about 25,000 acres as of Friday, while lightning-sparked fires had consumed about 267,000 acres.
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