Best news first! With ChatGPT’s help, we’ve found a 20V fuse that was dead in one of my truck’s 3 fuse boxes, and once it was replaced, I have a working 12V plug that will charge the Jackery!! YES!! Actually two are fixed (of the 4 I have), but one is not keyed, so it is always on and that seems kinda high risk for running down the truck’s battery! I can work with one!

Anyway, that is a massive load off my mind that I can keep that Jackery battery topped up while driving, to power the cooler!

ChatGPT was hoping we’d find a relay that was bad, to tie the air conditioning problem to the 12V problem, but that was not the case (so far!?)

Now about those fires.

We’re summer warm suddenly! And that brought two afternoons with rolling thunderstorms and rain. The lightning sparked up a bunch of fires. This afternoon, Jeff messaged from work that there was a big plume across the river. As they got crews on it, they kept spotting more plumes.

Here’s the latest look around town. The green are the fires they will just let burn naturally, because there are no nearby assets (mines, cabins, towns). Yellow means they are watching them. Red are getting fought because they are too close for comfort. The nearest one across the river is 11 km. The yellow one is 20 km and it has now closed the Top of the World highway from here all the way to the Alaska border!

A lightning-caused wildfire is burning approximately 20 kilometres northwest of Dawson. The fire is active approximately five kilometres north of the Top of the World Highway. The highway is closed due to fire risk and smoke.

The Quebec Creek fire (DA-012) was identified June 19 around 2 pm. The fire is in the full zone and is currently out of control. The fire is visible from Dawson but is not a risk to the community at this time. Direct action or airtankers is not an option due to intense fire activity. Fire staff are currently assessing the size of the fire and response options.

In total, there are 16 active wildfires in the Dawson area. Half are currently out of control, while successful initial-attack has the remaining fires under control or being held.

Lightning has caused all the fires over the past 48 hours.

Two fires south of the Top of the World Highway, the Swede Creek fire (DA-003) and the Discovery Pup fire (DA-011), are now being held or under control.

A cluster of fires (DA-001, DA-004, DA-005, DA-006, DA007, DA-008, DA-009 and DA-010) is located northwest of Dawson and is not currently threatening people or property.

More lightning-caused fires are anticipated this evening. We will continue to provide updates.

Further updates will be on the Wildfire Hub.

The weather has finally been nice enough to work from the front porch in the afternoon!

While I worked, I saw the Electra retardant bomber arrive to hit that fire. You can see it in the cloud near the middle of the picture (it came in high before it looped around to drop retardant).

They are expecting more lightning here tonight so Jeff filled up my truck with gas just in case we need to get out of here, but right now I’m not that concerned. Although one of the new fires is at the Dempster Corner and they don’t have the resources to hit it too. It’s already 150 hectares! That’s a fire close to both roads out of town, but right now, the Klondike highway is still open.

You can see the plume from the Dawson City webcam. Here’s the view right now at 9:35pm:

Sleep well I guess!? haha! We’ll see what tomorrow brings.