Simulation to Action: A practice run becomes invaluable when fire breaks out

NPS AK Western Area Fire Management program Fire Management Officer Keith Mitchell addresses participants at the simulation event held at Denali National Park & Preserve in May 2024.

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The front country of Denali National Park and Preserve (Denali) had not experienced a significant wildland fire for a century. Given that wildfire typically returns to the dominant forest type every 60-120 years, NPS Alaska Western Area Fire Management staff brought together local park managers, major community stakeholders and regional wildfire suppression experts to discuss and prepare for what wildfire might look like in this area. A half-day simulation event took place in May 2024 near park headquarters.

The 1924 fire in Denali National Park, and view from the same spot in 2010.

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The event began with a historical recounting of the 1924 fire that burned an estimated 8,600 acres. Then park superintendent Harry Karstens reported on July 2, 1924: "Large forest fire immediately south of headquarters… we used a tree with its roots on for a plow, hooked a team of horses to it and dragged it along the edge of the fire, breaking up the moss and soil to prevent the fire from traveling…”. Fed by dry vegetation and a consistent southerly wind pushing the flames north, the fire ultimately burned for about a month, causing park families to leave their quarters, summer camps around the McKinley station to be abandoned, and forests throughout the park entrance area to experience severe burning.

Note the difference in fuels (material that can burn) on the landscape between 1922 and 2010.

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One hundred years later, in May 2024, land managers from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Alaska Fire Service (AFS), Bureau of Indian Affairs, State of Alaska (DNR) Division of Forestry and Fire Protection, Denali Borough, local fire departments, and the National Park Service (NPS) gathered within the forest that grew back after the 1924 fire. Although resources, technology and communications have drastically changed, fire managers recognize the ongoing and critical need to improve fire preparedness and strive toward becoming a fire adapted community. A fire adapted community focuses on creating defensible and resilient landscapes, and is as prepared as possible to receive, respond to, and recover from wildfire. Through understanding wildfire risk within Denali’s front country and surrounding communities, local residents and fire managers alike are better equipped to live with wildfire.

NPS AK Regional Fire Ecologist Jennifer Barnes presents at the May 2024 simulation event held at Denali National Park & Preserve.

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As part of the simulation, fire suppression agencies and local community members first identified and assessed risk and likelihood of fire impact to locations of values using an Incident Strategic Alignment Process (ISAP). In this process, a potential fire start is mapped and modelled based on a series of fire weather conditions and severities. With scenarios of modeled fire spread in hand, stakeholders first work together to identify critical values at risk, and rank their potential loss as catastrophic, critical, moderate, or negligible based on the threat to cultural or ecological resources and effect of usability/function of those resources. Secondly, managers discuss strategy and strategic actions—what they may do and how they may do it. Within these actions, responder risk, e.g., should we do it, and the probability of success, e.g., can we be successful, were also evaluated.

Stakeholders from the local community and partners from various agencies discuss area values at the May 2024 simulation event.

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This simulation and these initial discussions are the start of a continued conversation to better prepare Denali and surrounding communities for wildfire. The May 2024 discussion proved to be invaluable, as a wildfire broke near Denali’s entrance on June 30, 2024, coincidentally, just two days different than the wildfire in 1924. The pre-planning and pointed conversations which had occurred the previous month helped all involved to be prepared and effectively manage the 2024 event, known as the Riley Fire.