Today’s science topic highlights a fire management conundrum:  While the number of acres burned in Alaska and most of the West is increasing, the number of wildland
firefighters available to suppress them is doing the opposite.  Consider the data published in Wildfire Today’s article last year  (Gabbert 2015).  The number of employees in the 5 major federal land management agencies who manage fires have all shrunk–by 6% at FWS to 18% at BLM to 33% at BIA.   Although these numbers are national, Alaska’s agencies have mirrored some of these reductions (and recall that large fire incidents tap the national pool of firefighters).  By some estimates the number of federally-employed firefighters is down by about 20% from 2011.