“It’s been hot, it’s been dry, and it’s been windy. And those winds gusts of 20 miles per hour, it’s kind of funneled through the Andreafsky River drainage,” said Beth Ipsen. Federal entities sent in more firefighters this week, and some residents are thinking about preparing their go-bags.

Two villages along the Lower Yukon River have begun evacuating their most vulnerable residents from a tundra fire.The fire late Thursday was burning less than eight miles from St Mary’s and nearby Pitkas Point, and wind continues spreading the flames closer to the villages with a combined population of over 700 people. Yute Commuter Service is sending all its planes to St. Mary’s to evacuate residents, and Grant Aviation is prepared to assist.

This season the birch pollen has been particularly bad. Some people with asthma have had to leave the state. The peak was May 18 when pollen counts were 974 grains per cubic meter.

The blaze was the fourth such incident in the last one month, as Delhi’s landfills are catching fire due to heavy build up of methane between the layers of millions of tonnes of garbage and high temperatures the city. Local residents said small fires keep erupting in the huge mountain of waste, but they have not seen such a massive one that broke out on Tuesday night.

Delhi’s Ghazipur landfill site set ablaze due to the release of methane gas, as there many dry leaves on the site at that time and also as the temperature in the city is very high, the leaves caught fire from the gas and set the entire landfill site ablaze. The entire area was covered with smoke.