Alaska experiencing wildfires on a scale it’s never seen; climate change seen as the key cause

In this photo provided by Eric Kiehn of Alaska’s Northwest Incident Management Team 10, an airplane drops water on the Clear Fire near Anderson, Alaska, on July 6. Alaska’s remarkable wildfire season has resulted in dangerous breathing conditions from smoke attributed to fires started by lightning. (Eric Kiehn / Alaska Division of Forestry via AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska is burning this year in ways rarely or ever seen, from the largest wildfire in its typically mainly fireproof southwest region to a pair of fires that ripped through forests and produced smoke that blew hundreds of miles to the the Bering Sea community of Nome, where the normally crystal clear air was pushed into the extremely unhealthy category.

More than 530 wildfires have burned an area the size of Connecticut.