With wildfire season cooling down in Alaska and heating up in the western United States, the
Alaska Division of Forestry and U.S. Forest Service are deploying a handful of initial attack crews to the Lower
48 to assist with firefighting efforts there.
Five initial attack crews will board a National Interagency Coordination Center jet in Anchorage on Wednesday
morning to fly to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. From there, crews will be assigned to
different fires around the western U.S.
The five crews heading south include the Pioneer Peak Interagency Hotshot Crew, the Gannett Glacier Type 2
Initial Attack Crew, the Tanana Chiefs Conference T2 IA Crew, the Yukon T2 IA Crew, all from the Division of
Forestry, and the Region 10 T2 IA Crew from the U.S. Forest Service. Each crew consists of approximately 20
firefighters.
Wildland fire managers in Alaska are confident that sufficient personnel and aircraft remain in the state to
respond to any wildfires that occur.