For Only 6th Time Alaska Has Recorded a 3-Million-Acre Fire Season. Already.

For the first time since 2015, Alaska has recorded a three million-acre fire season. Already.

It also reached this milestone in 2005, 2004, 1990, 1969, and 1957 since 1950, when accurate counting of acres began.

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Here’s how they got there this season:

• July 21 – 3,000,532.9 acres
• July 2 – 2,020,511 acres
• June 19 – 1,005,196 acres

The map above helps illustrate just how widespread the fire activity has been this season and compares the fire expanse to the Lower 48.

It is 1,800 miles between the westernmost and easternmost fire reported this year. That’s a little more than the exact distance between Boston and Denver.

The distance between the farthest north and farthest south fires is 1,600 miles. That’s similar to the distance from Detroit to Phoenix.

BLM Alaska Fire Service Smokejumpers had the most southern fire jump in Alaska in the BLM smokejumpers’ 63-year history by traveling 787 miles from Fairbanks to Popof Island in the eastern Aleutian Chain on May 13, 2022, to protect Sand Point from a nearby wildfire. That’s similar to the distance between Pittsburg to Kansas, Mo.

In case you were wondering, the state’s biggest fire season was back in 2004, reaching 6.5 million acres burned.