Fire Island (Anchorage, Alaska)

Fire Island is underlain by sedimentary rocks, atop which lie deep sand and gravel deposits from the surrounding tidal estuary.

[1]: 9–15  The island is ringed by steep bluffs that average about 60 metres (200 ft) high, and the land elevation ranges from 25–90 above sea level.

Hikers occasionally attempt the 3.5-mile (5.6-km) trek from Kincaid Park, but the incoming tide can make the journey dangerous, and people have been known to drown.

A Dena’ina elder reported that a village had once existed in Fire Island, but an epidemic forced the survivors to move south to Point Possession, across the Turnagain Arm on the Kenai Peninsula, sometime before 1934.

[4][5] A runway was built during the first years of the base's existence; however, during the 1964 Alaska earthquake – one of the largest in recorded history – the airfield subsided into the ocean, leaving helicopter as the only way of reaching the island by air.

[6] In 1982, the site of the old air station was turned over to the native corporation Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI) as federal surplus property.

[10] Since the abandonment of the air force station, various uses had been suggested for the island, including an expansion of the Port of Anchorage or the development of industrial facilities.

Although drinking-water supplies were judged insufficient to support commercial or industrial development,[1]: 3–8  in the early 1990s the utility Chugach Electric determined that Fire Island is a favorable location for a wind farm.

The FAA, operators of nearby Anchorage International Airport, cautiously approved the project in 2008 after deciding that the wind turbines would not interfere with their radar equipment.