Alaska Wildfires. Lightning Rods Might Be A Solution. Over 20 Fires Raging in Alaska Mainland Right Now.

Right now, 18th of June 2012, there are about 30 fires ranging in different sizes throughout the state of Alaska.

Reports are, all but one of them were started by lightning.

Question lies precluding making big investments into lightning rods, which is do they REALLY work, usually meaning, basing the answer to this question off of scientific experiments that used a control group as the method to determining whether or not they are proven to work; since the science experiments never proved they work, the idea of making heavy investments was tossed out.

Howbeit, lightning rods in places that have a history of common occurrences of lightning, also have a history of significantly reduced, if not altogether done away with lightning damage.

What it seems like Alaska needs, are some lightning rods around Fairbanks, Alaska, that are taller than the trees.  Fairbanks had 3 fires started in a 3 day period earlier last week.

2 or 3 of the roughly 30 fires raging this month have been described and documented as a 'wildfire' by NIFC.  These are larger ones.  Smaller fires are still blazing.  20 or 30 fires all raging at the same time, although smaller in area per each, when added together, still account for combined square miles that are huge.  Literally, about a third to a half of Alaska as we speak is up in flames.

Fairbanks is toward the very middle of the big portion of the state of Alaska.

Many acres that are the victim of fire have black spruce {tree}.

This the scene, using a 2010 picture, of fire racing through black spruce trees in Alaska, obviously there is not much room to play in there at all:

click picture to open in new window and see border details

[picture courtesy httpmalg...tag=wildfire]

What kind of fire do you get when you combine lighting, in the Alaska region, with black spruce in Alaska, plus the other elements, such as air, climate?

Basically, lightning rods are supposed to work by a mechanism whereas the lightning seeks the rod, instead of something else, like your property, and then the electric charge of the lightning makes its way down the pole and discharges in the ground.

Fire names in Alaska as of June 2012:

• Kokrines Hills
• Nekakte
• Little Indian River
• Koguluktuk River
• Stink Creek
• Mentanontli River
• Deadwood Creek [mix of live fire and smoldering]

The list above is only some of the fires, they might be largest, and really fires, that are being tended to by firefighting.

Black spruce, does not mean that the whole tree, or the log part of the tree is actually black in color.

The tree is reminiscent of the fern tree.

Just because it can get cold in Alaska, does not mean that fire cannot exist in large volume out in the wilderness resulting from forces of nature.

A May 2012 newsminer.com, Fairbanks online paper article says fires can lead to smoke which leads to visibility of less than a quarter or a fourth of a mile, and prompting air quality warnings warnings.
The article also says, 6.6 million acres burned in Alaska fires in 2004,
last year in 2011, 515 fires burned 293,018 acres, the 3rd lowest annual total in the last decade; that about 20 miles long and 20 miles wide, if you were to heap all the fires together;
normally, about 1 million acres is covered by fire each year, mostly in interior of the state, that means the big part of Alaska and not the shoreline or the 'stretch of little bitty islands'.

1 million acres is about 1562.5 miles squared.  This is about 39 and a half miles long, and 39.5 miles wide.

Reference 2004, 6.6 million acres is over 10,156.25 square miles, which is about 100 miles long by the same wide.

To give you an idea of what the fires burning in Alaska right now look like, this might be almost a microcosm of the situation, the photo below, way out rural areas, low lying fire fueled not only by spruce trees, but also by tundra.  Comparatively barely any civilization directly where the fire is, does not mean that the fires should just be ignored,; there are a number of reasons while all fires should be put under control, and under guidance of those knowledgeable.

The photo is of the Kokrines Hill fire taken about 11 days ago, estimated at around 200 miles west of Fairbanks, paralleling the Yukon River.  These and other photos can be found at Alaska channel 2 news, website page http://www.ktuu.com/features/alaska-wildfires-20120607,0,1822233.photogallery

Synopsis/encapsulated fire situation in Alaska, other statistics: of fire related fatalities in the last 3 to 5 years, strikingly, only about 2% of them have been due to outside fires, meaning wildfire/tundra fire/trees out in wildlife/of that nature or maximum of about 1 or 2 people a year according to recent DPS reports, rather the 20 to 30 people that deceased per year were victims of more urban type catastrophes, structural fires, and of the 20 to 30 people, ALCOHOL / DRUGS was a contributing to over 40% of them, over a third of the 40 or so injuries a year take place on the weekend.   About 16% of fires that get started in houses, start in the kitchen.  The cross-sectional group that is hit the hardest as far as fire related fatalities in Alaska is the 20-29 year old age group, on Saturdays.  This information is based on a report, 'Fire in Alaska, 2010, DPS'.