[bc_video account_id=”” player_id=”” video_id=””]
Driven by unseasonably warm summer temperatures, the Carlson Lake Fire sent a column of white smoke towering 7,000 feet above the tundra of interior Alaska as 70-foot-high flames chewed through black spruce trees, reports USA Today.
The fire had been burning weeks in the Alaska wilderness near Denali, and wildland firefighters had grown accustomed to its behavior: flare up, simmer down, flare up. But an unseasonably warm day coupled with moderate winds meant the 44,000 acre fire was threatening a remote hunting cabin.
Circling 4,000 feet above in an Alaska Fire Service spotter plane, detection specialist Brett Fairchild made the call to dispatch: Send in the smokejumpers.
“It’s definitely moving,” Fairchild said. “It’s not a bad idea to get people in here.”
Smokejumpers are elite firefighters who parachute into remote areas around the country, rapidly cutting down trees and igniting low-intensity back burns designed to rob a growing wildfire of the fuel it needs to become a monster. They drop with ATVs, chainsaws, hoses, pumps and boats, prepared to camp out for 21 days as they fight fire.
As Fairchild made the call, Kael Donley and his fellow smokejumpers scrambled to be ready. They had two minutes to be ready to board their aircraft for the 150-mile flight from Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks.
Read more of the story here http://usat.ly/1JWoT7V
