Unalaska, AK – A large fishing boat is on fire in the Bering Sea 136 miles northeast of Unalaska, with no reported injuries or fatalities as of 9 p.m. Tuesday night.
The U.S. Coast Guard and other ships in the Bering Sea fishing fleet were evacuating crew members from the 276-foot Pacific Glacier, a Seattle-based factory trawler, on Tuesday night. The cause of the blaze is unknown.
Coast Guard Lt. Eric Eggen said that as of 8:45 p.m. 90 of the 106 crew members had gotten off the boat and onto another vessel in the area. The remaining 16 were staying onboard to fight the fire.
After a week's worth of blizzards and poor visibility kept flights from landing in Nikolski, two ACE Air Services planes were able to reach the village late this afternoon with emergency fuel shipments, according to ACE Director of Operations Greg Hawthorne.
The 20 barrels delivered by the ACE pilots could be enough to keep lights on in the community until a barge delivery from Delta Western Fuels arrives. Delta Western Chief Operating Officer Kirk Payne said that the company is now hoping to make that delivery sometime within the next month, possibly as early as the first week of March.
Unalaska, AK – The Alaska Sea Grant program is looking for your help in charting the program's course in the Aleutian Islands.
The federally funded program, which is run out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is asking members of Aleutian communities to fill out a survey on its website that will help set research priorities in the region for the next few years.
Alaska Sea Grant Director Brian Allee said the program is making an effort to look at research needs besides commercial fisheries, which usually drive research funding priorities in Alaska's oceans. He said that while Sea Grant is soliciting ideas from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, it also wants to hear about other interests in coastal communities.
Unalaska, AK – The Bering Sea opilio crab, or snow crab, fleet is over halfway through its 2008 harvest, which will haul in nearly twice as much crab as last year's. So far, the season has been going very well for fishermen and processors. In Unalaska, KIAL's Charles Homans reports.
Unalaska, AK – The Coast Guard has ended its search for missing Japanese balloonist Michio Kanda. Kanda's hot air balloon disappeared in the North Pacific south of Adak Island in the Aleutians on January 31. Bad weather had hampered the Coast Guard's search, and damaged one of its ships. KIAL's Charles Homans reports.
Unalaska, AK – The National Weather Service has a blizzard warning in effect until 7 p.m. this evening for Unalaska, where snow, low visibility and winds gusting up to 54 miles per hour have socked in flights and closed city offices and schools this afternoon.
Road conditions are also worsening, rendering much of General's Hill inaccessible by road and prompting the Unalaska Department of Public Safety to issue a Category 2 travel advisory, advising residents to drive only if necessary.
Unalaska, AK – An emergency fuel shipment reached Nikolski this morning, and a spokesperson for governor Palin says her emergency management team is assessing the situation in the village. But the village's problems are far from over, and locals are eagerly awaiting a fuel barge scheduled to arrive next week. In Unalaska, KIAL's Charles Homans reports.
Unalaska, AK – A worsening fuel crisis in Nikolski has led the local tribal council to declare a disaster emergency for the village.
Nikolski is down to 400 gallons of oil for the village power plant, enough for just a few days. Council President Arnold Dushkin said that residents were gathering in the few houses that still had enough fuel for heat.
"There's some people here with fuel yet, so we're getting together to keep everybody warm," he said.
Unalaska, AK – The Coast Guard believes it may have found clues to the location of a hot air balloonist who disappeared south of the Aleutians two weeks ago, but bad weather kept searchers away from the area today.
Chief Petty Officer Barry Lane said that high winds and 25- to 30-foot seas in the North Pacific today grounded the Coast Guard's C-130 aircraft, which has been searching an area the size of Indiana for missing balloonist Michio Kanda over the past two weeks.
