Strong Partnerships Help Protect Significant Historical and Scientific Sites in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve

Annually, an average of 20,000 acres burns in wildfires at Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve (the preserve), nearly all of which start naturally. Human life and important cultural and natural resources are protected from wildfires, but fires that start naturally are not always aggressively put out. Instead, they are put in a Limited Management Option, in which they are allowed to burn so that fire continues to play its natural role within this fire-dependent ecosystem. Protection of historical sites and modern scientific equipment stationed within the hard-to-reach wilderness poses unique challenges. To overcome these challenges, National Park Service (NPS) staff work together with the Alaska Fire Service (AFS) for protection of structures and management of wildfires.

Cultas Creek Fire in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve on July 2, 2021.

Alaska Fire Service

The preserve is a vast and generally inaccessible 2.5 million acres of rugged mountains with stunning cliffs overlooking river basins in interior Alaska. The Yukon River is recognized by even those somewhat familiar with the history of the Alaska gold rush in the late 1800s. Historically significant sites from the gold rush era abound, as do sacred and protected sites of the Han Athabascan people, who call this landscape home.

The Cultas Creek Fire #223 began with a lightning strike and was detected by National Park Service fire ecologists working in the area on June 17^th. By early July 2021, the fire was burning within one mile of the Sam Creek Cabin, one of the oldest log structures in the preserve.

Sam Creek Cabin with structure protection in place on July 10, 2021.

Alaska Fire Service

To protect this historic structure, as well as the Ben Creek Cabin and nearby Ben Creek Remote Automatic Weather Station (RAWS), four AFS smokejumpers parachuted with supplies into the area. Another AFS fire specialist was transported in via helicopter. Their mission was to clear brush and set up sprinkler systems around the structures and RAWS. The Ben Creek RAWS provides weather information specific to that location, and protecting it is critical for firefighter safety and situational awareness. The preserve only has two RAWS and it is difficult to make repairs in these remote locations. The fire had significantly grown by the time firefighters could reach the area, but a creek separating the fire from the cabin created a buffer. The firefighters wasted no time setting up a pump, hose, and sprinkler system at both the Ben and Sam Creek cabins as well as the RAWS.

Pile burning reduces hazardous fuel build-up to protect the Ben Creek Remote Area Weather Station on September 25, 2008.

NPS

The vegetation and fuels are regularly reduced around both cabins and the RAWS as part of a five-year plan of treating fuels within the preserve to create defensible space and reduce the threat to historical structures. Recent fuels reduction projects around the cabins conducted by NPS fire management staff aided in the success of point protection by the AFS firefighters. In the event of a wildfire, fuels treatments give fire managers decision space when managing large fires such as Cultas Creek that are within the pre-designated Limited Option areas.

Limited Management Option

Fire management option designed for landscape scale areas where there is a low density and wide distribution of values to be protected. Wildland fires occuring with this designation will be allowed to burn within predertermined areas while continuing protection of human life and site-specific values. 

NPS firefighters travel to remote areas by boat for fuel reduction projects.

NPS

In mid-July, a module of NPS personnel arrived in the area to support the protection effort. It took an entire day to travel to the remote village of Eagle and another half-day to boat to the fire area. NPS Alaska Eastern Area Fire Management’s exclusive use helicopter was already on site to assist. As of July 24, the Cultas Creek Fire was approximately 37,000 acres and firefighters were continuing to monitor and provide point protection to the cabins and infrastructure important to telling the preserve’s story. Interagency Cooperation has been the key to protecting sites in such a vast landscape with limited resources.