Rain aids control of major wildfires

ANCHORAGE (AP) -- Rain continued to dampened wildfire activity across Alaska on Thursday, and three major wildfires were declared contained, including one near the Sterling Highway on the Kenai Peninsula that had more than 400 firefighters at work.

''We're wrapping up the work on these things,'' said Andy Williams of the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center. ''But we're not out of the woods yet. If we get a period of warm weather following this, we could be right back in fire danger again.''

Officials declared the Mystery Hills fire near Cooper Landing contained Wednesday evening, and full control was expected Thursday evening. About a hundred of the 405 firefighters were being sent home from that 1,000-acre fire on Thursday. A lightning strike started that fire last week.

The Kenai Lake fire was contained Tuesday. About 300 firefighters had been working there, but more than half of those were being released Thursday. That fire, which began as a prescribed burn in Mid-June, reached 3,260 acres.

In Interior Alaska, crews on the Tok fire were restoring fire lines to their natural state on Thursday, with most of them expected to finish their work on Friday. That human-caused 150-acre fire began Friday. It destroyed two homes and six outbuildings.

Mop-up operations continued Thursday with about a hundred firefighter on the Fish Creek Fire 15 miles southeast of Nenana. That fire burned 83,000 acres. The blaze was considered contained west of the Totatlanika River, not far from the Parks Highway. East of that river, it was being allowed to burn.

The Survey Line fire on Fort Wainwright land 15 miles southwest of Fairbanks continued burning on the southeast perimeter but was quiet elsewhere. No firefighters were working that blaze, which has charred 111,000 acres.

No new fires were reported in the state Wednesday. So far, fire monitors say 304 fires in the state this year have burned more than 210,000 acres.