Last summer, the immense Funny River Horse Trail Fire burned through 195,858 acres of land, prompted evacuations, briefly jumped the Kenai River and required a massive multi-agency response by the time it was done ripping through Alaska's Kenai Peninsula.
A year later, the blaze's cause is still unknown. The Alaska Division of Forestry said it was started by humans but they're unsure of exactly how. Last summer, fire officials ruled out a campfire but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still investigating.
Though the fire's cause remains a mystery, overall, officials say they learned plenty from the Funny River Fire about modern-day disaster response.
No landlines? Big problem
Over the 2014 Memorial Day weekend, 1,300 residents from the Funny River area, eastern Kasilof and parts of the Sterling Highway corridor were put under evacuation watch. Forecasters warned that wind gusts up to 35 mph were expected to create more fire activity, which had the potential to creep closer to residential areas.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management orchestrated the evacuation but they had a problem -- their main source of communication was no longer effective. Many Alaskans had ditched their landlines for cellphones.
"(Almost) no one has landlines anymore," said Dan Nelson, program coordinator for the Office of Emergency Management, in a recent interview.
According to Nelson, officials were relying heavily on a "rapid notify system," commonly known as a reverse 911 call. In case of an emergency, the system sends recorded messages to local landlines using telephone company databases.
But cellphones don't work the same way. There are different cellphone service providers and no central database. To be part of the Kenai Peninsula Borough's rapid notify system with a cellphone number, residents have to proactively register.
During the Funny River Fire, about 2,000 people registered their cellphones with the rapid notify system, Nelson said.
"If you're not part of this system, you might miss something important," Nelson said. "What we found during the Funny River Fire, with so many people registering, is we really would have to work through some growing pains."
With that sudden rush of newly registered rapid notify subscribers, technical changes had to be made on the fly to accommodate the new users.
"It's a reminder to us, to residents and visitors: You need to register for this ahead of time," Nelson said. "It's a really important, big way to communicate in case of an emergency."
In the end, Nelson said, the evacuation was successful. Residents had been watching the fire burn and knew what the outcome could be.
"For this fire, (the evacuation) went OK," Nelson said. "We had warning. Everyone was watching the fire and the smoke clouds. A lot of people in that area have horses but a lot of people had already moved their livestock. They were ready to go."
The importance of a fuel break
Spring can be a dangerous time of year for Alaska. The grass is dead, the tundra's brown and when the weather is dry, it creates a dangerous combination. It's been a concern already this year after a low-snow winter, and the Kenai Peninsula is no exception.
During an interview earlier this month, Division of Forestry Fire Manager Howie Kent said officials have long known the Kenai Peninsula has the conditions for a "Funny River-type fire" every year.
In 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service worked with the state to create a fuel break -- a man-made gap in vegetation or materials capable of becoming fire fuel -- from about Mile 9 of Funny River Road to Brown's Lake, for 3 1/2 miles. An effective fuel break can significantly slow or stop the progression of a fire.
"We learned the importance of having fuel breaks in place before the fire starts," Division of Forestry spokesperson Tim Mowry said.
" … (It) played a huge role in helping the state get a handle on the Funny River Fire and protecting subdivisions threatened by the fire," Mowry said. "Without it, I shudder to think of what might have happened."
Mowry added the fuel break was about 200 to 300 yards wide.
Andy Loranger, manager of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, which contained nearly all of the Funny River Fire, reiterated the fuel break's importance.
"That break did what it was supposed to," Loranger said. "The fire went from a canopy fire down to a ground fire. It allowed responders to hold the fire at Funny River Road."
An ongoing lesson
Burning almost entirely on the refuge, the Funny River Fire was the second largest refuge blaze since its establishment in 1941, when it was known as the Kenai National Moose Range. The only fire to burn more acreage was the Skilak Lake fire of 1947, which burned 310,000 acres.
From a wildlife perspective, Loranger said, the fire will likely do great things for the moose population. A report from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game says the moose population on the north end of the Kenai has been in decline since the early 1990s.
As a forest matures, food becomes out of reach for moose, Loranger said.
But a young forest -- like that which pops up in the wake of a wildfire -- serves up all the right fixings to help sustain and rebuild a healthy moose population.
"As they (forests) regenerate, they provide valuable wintering habitat for moose," Loranger said. "Large fires can really benefit the moose population."
Now, Loranger said, he's expecting good habitat regeneration for moose.
But how everything will ultimately come together is still unknown. There will be long-term effects that Loranger said will need to be studied.
One year later
The fire, which started on May 19, wasn't officially declared out until Dec. 8.
Even though the Funny River Fire will be remembered as one of the largest fires to hit the refuge, on a state level it was relatively small, Mowry said. Large fires burn around the state every year, though few threaten more than remote wilderness cabins, unlike the Funny River Fire, which had whole neighborhoods worried about the flames' spread.
But the Department of Forestry will continue to monitor the area -- especially in spots immediately adjacent to homes and private property -- using aircraft surveillance and the public's help. They're checking for cases of holdover fire, which is when "residual heat lays dormant through the winter and pops back up when warming conditions occur in the spring," Mowry said.
Earlier this week, mushroom hunters found a hot spot believed to be left over from the Funny River Fire. Anyone who finds a fire holdover is asked to call 911 or 260-4100.
"With the mild winter that we had, we are expecting to see or receive reports of other areas along the perimeter of the Funny River Fire with residual heat and smoke as we move further along into summer," Mowry said.