Wildfire burns near Northwest Arctic villages

A wildfire in one of the state's driest regions is spreading near the Northwest Arctic villages of Kobuk and Shungnak, a state fire official said Saturday.

The Warren Creek fire spanned more than 1,174 acres as of late Friday and had grown even larger by Saturday, but by how much wasn't clear, said Tim Mowry, a spokesman for the state Division of Forestry in Fairbanks.

No lightning strikes were reported in the area, leading officials to believe the fire was human-caused, he said. The burning tract, about 10 miles northeast of Shungnak and 5 miles northwest of Kobuk, started roughly 1 mile from a road leading back to Kobuk.

The fire was reported on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday winds were shepherding the fire toward the northwest, away from the two villages. About 60 fire responders from the forestry division and U.S. Bureau of Land Management were on the ground with support from six water-scooping aircraft overhead, Mowry said.

"The fire is moving into country that is not really inhabited by anyone," he said.

No rain has fallen lately in the area, a vast expanse of tundra and black spruce in the Northwest Arctic Borough.

"It's real dry," Mowry said. "It's the driest part of the state right now."