Studies measured the composition of the stream bottom, the water quality and stream flow, and the macroinvertebrates eaten by the young fish. Information gathered will be used to make informed decisions when land use activities increase. Fire management Tree-covered Interior Alaska is prone to fire. Where lightning kindles a spark in favorable fuels, flames may sweep through the black spruce forests. Wildfire in Alaska destroys and renews in one breath.
Fire disperses black spruce seeds.
The heat warms the soil, burns some of the moss and lichen mat, and exposes a seed bed ripe for a variety of successional plants. The BLM Alaska Fire Service and the Alaska Division of Forestry manage wildfires in cooperation with land owners and land management agencies. Wildfires burned just over 2 million acres statewide in 1997. In the past, all fires in the trans-Alaska Pipeline Corridor north of the Yukon River were suppressed. Working with the Alaska Fire Service, the pipeline owners and other property owners and interests in the corridor, the Northern Field Office redesignated nearly 1 million acres to a more natural fire regime.