Alaska's wildfire season started strong but fizzled out, officials say

Alaska's fire service cooperative reported Friday that despite an early start to the 2016 wildfire season, the amount of acres burned this summer ended up well below normal levels.

A total of 558 wildfires burned 500,095 acres statewide, according to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center. That makes this fire season the 36th largest since record-keeping began in 1939, officials said.

The season paled in comparison to last summer, when 768 fires scorched about 5.1 million acres across the state. It was the second-largest fire season on record.

In an average Alaska fire season, about 500 fires burn nearly 1 million acres, according to AICC.

Things got off to an earlier start. The first wildfire of the season was reported on Feb. 22 south of Delta Junction, which was caused by live-fire training on military property, officials said.

However, heavy rainfall in the Interior in June and July slowed fire activity during what are typically the two busiest months of the season, according to AICC.

Alaska still managed to rank second in total acres burned this summer by state. California came in first with 640,000 acres burned as of Sept. 30.

The majority of wildfires here were human-caused, which officials said is usually the case – 59 percent or 331 fires were caused by humans. Lightning sparked a total of 227 fires, according to AICC.

Possibly the most threatening fire during the season was caused by an unextinguished campfire, officials said. The McHugh fire scorched hundreds of acres of parkland south of Anchorage for nearly a week until rains helped stop its spread toward two residential areas.

[Read more: Days of rain, weaker winds are helping crews fighting the McHugh Creek wildfire]

The largest fire of the season was dubbed the Hog River Fire by fire officials and burned 58,565 acres.