PENFIELD – Six Bureau of Forestry employees and one volunteer who departed from the Moshannon State Forest on July 12 have returned from their adventures in Alaska, according to Wayne Wynick, assistant district forester.
They returned to their homes late in the day on Monday. They were assigned to fight the Stuart Creek 2 Fire, which is still burning 25 miles east of the community of North Pole in Alaska, said Wynick.
“While the fire is not yet completely contained, our crews had reached their time limit for days worked on the fire,” he said.
In addition, he said operations have been scaled back due to the amount of containment that has been completed on the 85,400-acre fire, so there has been a reduction in manpower at the scene.
Wynick said the seven individuals who departed from here were the largest contingency from any of the Bureau of Forestry’s 20 Districts. He said they were assigned to two crews that were a part of eight sent from the east to the fire in Alaska.
“This was a first, as our crews have never been called up for an assignment to that part of the country before,” said Wynick.
