Homeowners, Prisoners Evacuated as Alaska Fire Gobbles Acreage

Nearly 1,000 people have been ordered out of their homes, and a prison farm was evacuated Wednesday as a forest fire cut through this sparse community 60 miles north of Anchorage.

Fire officials waited on reinforcements from the Lower 48 states and expected no rain before at least Sunday.

The fire tripled in size from dawn to afternoon, burning about 37,000 acres and 150 homes since the weekend.

Investigators suspect that it might have been caused by fireworks, said Forestry Division spokeswoman Katie Markin.

Early Wednesday, the state Department of Corrections evacuated the 74 inmates of Point McKenzie farm, a minimum-security work farm in the path of the fire.

On the Alaska Railroad, popular with tourists, southbound trains out of Fairbanks were halted because the fire burned right up to the tracks, a railroad spokeswoman said. Passengers were being bused to Anchorage, and freight traffic was on hold.

The fire was burning south through dense black spruce and birch, pushed by a steady 15-mph breeze with gusts to 25 mph. Smoke drifted over Anchorage, prompting health officials there to issue an air-quality alert.

Fire commander Dave Liebersbach was expecting as many as 1,000 more firefighters, many from the Lower 48, but said that even with every available firefighter on the scene, he still wouldn’t be able to get the blaze under control until the wind shifts or rain falls.