The My name is Micah booze and that's what I normally go by or what folks call me and I'm a

wildland firefighter for the government, which will keep nameless.

And how would you describe the fire season in Alaska?

This year was rather slow and uneventful which is really good.

Last year compared to this year is night and day.

We had I think just over 181,000 acres burned this year in Alaska and

compared to last year it was 2.6 million acres and we were just kind of winding down at this time and at least things were closing out.

So it's this year was a lot sleepier which is a lot better. We still didn't get as much precipitation as you know average but I think I think last year was was was so big that everyone was happy with nothing going on this year for sure.

You know this might be my own ignorance but what would account for less fires this year?

It's a good question.

I think it's, this is mostly opinion I would say, but I think it's this is mostly opinion I would say but I think it comes down to a good few

variables and factors but you know one is precept we did get a little more precept than

last year and last year we had I think we went from

June 2nd or 3rd to you know late August if not September before we had a real rain

which is very very abnormal for Alaska.

But you know I think most of our starts last year were from lightning.

We do get human starts but unlike unlike the United States, or the lower 48, rather, a lot of our

starts are coming from lightning in the interior.

And so we do get the human starts, of but it's it's not quite in the capacity that the lower 48 gets it.

So you know maybe it's mindfulness out of the human starts human beings, you know being mindful in their campgrounds or whether burning debris or whatever in their backyard.

We did have a burn ban this year, so maybe that helped as well, and it was a little more restrictive than in the past at least in my area on the

key nine peninsula but you know it's to me it's the weather we talk about

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