01-05-2023, 05:38 PM
By MARK THIESSEN
yesterday
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a recent series of wildfires near Anchorage and the hottest day on record have sparked fears that a warming climate could soon mean serious, untenable blazes in urban areas — just like in the rest of the drought-plagued American West.
The risk is particularly high in the city’s burgeoning Anchorage Hillside neighborhood, where multi-million dollar homes have pushed further and further up steep slopes and to the forest’s edge. Making the challenge even greater is that many of these areas on the Hillside — home to about 35,000 people — have but one road in and out, meaning that fleeing residents could clog a roadway or be cut off from reaching Anchorage at all.
......
as Anchorage has grown, the available land is higher up, where wild and urban areas intersect, and those fires are very different from what his firefighters are trained to combat.
The city also has limited wildfire equipment, and it’s nearly impossible to get a fire engine up some switchback roads to homes nestled high up mountains.
https://apnews.com/article/alaska-anchor...5a851430cd
yesterday
......
a recent series of wildfires near Anchorage and the hottest day on record have sparked fears that a warming climate could soon mean serious, untenable blazes in urban areas — just like in the rest of the drought-plagued American West.
The risk is particularly high in the city’s burgeoning Anchorage Hillside neighborhood, where multi-million dollar homes have pushed further and further up steep slopes and to the forest’s edge. Making the challenge even greater is that many of these areas on the Hillside — home to about 35,000 people — have but one road in and out, meaning that fleeing residents could clog a roadway or be cut off from reaching Anchorage at all.
......
as Anchorage has grown, the available land is higher up, where wild and urban areas intersect, and those fires are very different from what his firefighters are trained to combat.
The city also has limited wildfire equipment, and it’s nearly impossible to get a fire engine up some switchback roads to homes nestled high up mountains.
https://apnews.com/article/alaska-anchor...5a851430cd