08/29/2026
🔥 TOK, ALASKA: A COMMUNITY THAT HAS FACED FIRE BEFORE 🔥
As our community begins the long process of recovering from the Mukluk Fire, I wanted to look back at Tok’s history with wildfires.
What I found was eye-opening.
According to Alaska’s official wildfire records, there have been approximately 246 recorded wildland fires within about 30 miles of Tok during the past two decades. Thankfully, firefighters caught most of them while they were still an acre or less. Those small fires seldom make the news, but each one represents firefighters, equipment operators, pilots, dispatchers and local volunteers stepping in before a dangerous situation became a disaster.
Some fires were not so easily stopped.
In 2010, the lightning-caused Eagle Trail Fire burned nearly 18,000 acres and threatened Tok and Tanacross. Suppressing that fire reportedly cost the State of Alaska more than $9 million.
In 2013, the Tetlin Junction Ridge Fire burned more than 20,000 acres. In 2015, another Tetlin Hills fire burned nearly 1,900 acres. Fires near the Tok and Tetlin rivers burned more than 1,400 acres in 2016.
Then came 2025. The Seven Mile Lookout Fire burned more than 4,000 acres south of Tok, while several other large fires burned throughout the surrounding country.
But Tok’s history with fire goes back even farther.
In July 1990, a lightning-caused wildfire jumped two rivers and the Alaska Highway. Tok was evacuated, and more than 1,000 firefighters worked to save the community. The fire came dangerously close to town before what local residents called a “miracle wind” changed its direction. That fire eventually burned more than 100,000 acres.
Thirty-six years later, the Mukluk Fire brought the flames directly into our neighborhoods.
It grew from a small fire into thousands of acres in a matter of hours. It forced evacuations and ultimately destroyed 44 homes. For a community the size of Tok, that is a devastating loss unlike anything most of us have witnessed here.
Yet history also tells another story.
Tok survives.
We survived the fire of 1990. We faced the Eagle Trail Fire, the Tetlin fires, the Seven Mile Lookout Fire and hundreds of smaller fires that were stopped before they could become disasters. Now we will face the aftermath of the Mukluk Fire together.
We owe an enormous thank-you to every local volunteer, firefighter, smokejumper, hotshot, equipment operator, pilot, emergency worker, law-enforcement officer, utility worker, cook, shelter volunteer and neighbor who stepped forward.
Some members of the firefighting community continued working even after losing their own homes. That kind of courage and dedication should never be forgotten.
Fire has left scars across the land surrounding Tok, but those burned areas eventually grow green again. New trees rise, wildlife returns and the land begins to heal.
Our community will heal too.
Tok has always been made up of strong, independent people who take care of one another. We may have lost homes, buildings and possessions, but we have not lost the spirit of this town.
Tok has stood before.
Tok will stand again. ❤️
Please share this story so people across Alaska—and across the country—understand what our small community has endured and why our neighbors still need help.
