Nine months after the Funny River Fire burned more than 195,000 acres south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, the state Department of Natural Resources has eliminated the Wildland Fire Academy as well as 16 jobs within the agency after budget cuts by Governor Bill Walker.

Below are excerpts from an article in the Juneau Empire:

With the devastating, weeks-long Funny River Fire just months behind Alaskans, the Department of Natural Resources’ Wildland Fire Academy is facing elimination.

The program, which trains civilians as forest firefighters, did not make the cut when Gov. Bill Walker trimmed the state budget this month.

“It takes the young folks from the villages and trains them up and gives them a career path for firefighting,” DNR Deputy Commissioner Ed Fogels said at a Monday Senate finance committee meeting. “It’s just one of those things where we’re looking at reducing our budgets and we have to make reductions somewhere.”

Also hit was the Division of Forestry’s Southwest region firefighting staff. Through the governor’s cuts, the staff, based in McGrath, would be diminished from 22 people to six. Combined with the elimination of the fire academy, it’s a $1.1 million cut.

[Senator Peter] Micciche [who represents the Funny River area on the Kenai Peninsula] said after the meeting that the fire changed the way he thinks of essential services, and he would now definitely include firefighting on his list of state must-haves.

[DNR Deputy Commissioner Ed] Fogels said the state will bring in additional fire crews from the Lower 48 if need be, something the state will then need to pay for at a cost that “will be more expensive than if we had our own fire crews.”

More information about the Funny River Fire:
Wildfire Today’s primary coverage of the Funny River Fire last May.
Satellite photos of the Funny River Fire.
Firefighters rescue wolf pups on the Funny River Fire.