Wildfire east of McGrath grew to 1,650 acres as of Sunday night

The windblown Medfra fire, about 50 miles northeast of McGrath, grew to 1,650 acres as of Sunday night and was 0 percent contained, a Forestry Division spokesman said Monday.

“They were waiting to put crews on it until today. There wasn’t much they could do yesterday,” said spokesman Tim Mowry. “The wind was blowing pretty hard.”

Mowry said more information on the size of the fire and firefighting efforts should be available later this morning. No structures were threatened by the wildfire as of Sunday night.

A wildfire in Southwest Alaska has grown to as much as 100 acres Sunday afternoon,

The fire grew rapidly since it was reported at around 10:25 a.m. Sunday morning. A helicopter from McGrath responded to reports of smoke about 50 miles northeast of the community and discovered that a fire from an old burn area had spread to about one acre, DOF says.

The helicopter began dropping water on the fire while smokejumpers from Palmer and the surrounding villages were mobilized to assist due, DOF said. Despite early efforts to contain the fire, the blaze grew to as much as five acres by the time smokejumpers arrived on scene at 1 p.m.

“By 2 p.m., the fire was estimated at 10 acres and spreading rapidly to the southwest due to high winds and continuous fuel,” the Division wrote in a press release. “The fire was spotting as far as one-half mile in front of itself due to the high winds. By 2:50 p.m., the fire was estimated at 50 to 100 acres.”

Six fire crews from Nikolai, Lower Kalskag, Upper Kalskag and Nondalton responded to the fire. Air tankers were continuing efforts to drop fire retardant on the blaze as of 3:45 p.m.