Mushroom hunters on the Kenai Peninsula Sunday discovered a smoldering hot spot that the Alaska Division of Forestry says it believes is a holdover from last year's Funny River Fire.
According to the Division of Forestry, the hot spot was reported at about 2:13 p.m. Sunday.
Firefighters responded to the area near Aurora Lake, on the north end of the Funny River Fire area, and discovered a 20-foot-by-20-foot smoldering area, the division's fire manager Howie Kent said.
Because of the size of the Funny River Fire -- 195,000 acres -- finding a hot spot nearly one year later isn't an oddity, Kent said.
"It's a little interesting, but something like this is not unheard of by any means," Kent said.
What Kent said was surprising was the location of the hot spot. Kent said it would have been more predictable to find a hotspot on the east side of where the fire had burned because the burn was deeper, and later in the summer.
The hot spot was extinguished, Kent said, but the forestry division staff will continue to monitor it.