ANCHORAGE,
Alaska (AP) -- Firefighters are monitoring a rare 20,000-acre
blaze on frozen tundra near the village of Kotlik on the southern
coast of Norton Sound.
Alaska's wildfire
season is usually over by December.
"I haven't
heard of anything like it," said Andy Williams, spokesman
for the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center.
The fire in
southwest Alaska is within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge
managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Larry Vanderlinden,
fire management coordinator for the agency, said fire crews would
be brought in only if residents or structures are threatened by
the blaze, which was first spotted Wednesday.
Fighting the
fire would be dangerous because of the elements and the speed
with which the blaze is moving, spreading at least 13 miles by
Friday, he said.
"We couldn't
really expect people to camp out there," Vanderlinden said.
"Natural resources are not worth putting human life at risk."
Both the Pastolik
and the Pastoliak rivers, as well as smaller streams and lakes,
stand between the village and the fire.
The cause
of the fire was under investigation.
"The
most reliable information is that it was started by the backfire
of a snowmachine," Vanderlinden said.
The area is
mostly snow-free.
People use
the refuge on snowmobiles even without snow. Tides raise levels
of major rivers and flood mud flats. The flooded areas freeze
and leave paths for snowmobiles on ice, Vanderlinden said.
The area is
designated for full fire protection because of concerns for critical
wildlife habit. However, the threatened wildlife, such as the
bristle-thighed curlew, is not around this time of year.
"The
threat to those birds is in the summer time when they're nesting,"
Vanderlinden said.
The refuge
covers 19.6 million acres and encompasses the deltas of the Yukon
and Kuskokwim rivers, the two longest rivers in Alaska.
The region
is treeless and consists mostly of vast tracts of wetlands.
According
to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the refuge provides habitat
for more than 750,000 swans and geese, 2 million ducks, and 100
million shore and water birds. Moose, caribou, grizzly bear, black
bear, and wolves inhabit the northern hills and eastern mountains
of the refuge.
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