Pipa Escalante/KUCB

Public safety is still investigating the cause of a rapidly-spreading tundra fire that broke out along the S-curves this weekend. 

The Ounalashka Corporation owned the land that caught on fire, just before 5 p.m. Saturday. Despite its proximity to Dutch Harbor post office and Gas 'n' Go, on Airport Beach Road, the blaze didn't jump to any nearby structures.

Ash and rain accumulate on a floatplane in Nelson Lagoon. (Courtesy of Merle Brandell)

Pavlof Volcano isn't showing signs of slowing down. It erupted all through the weekend, though not at levels that disturb international air traffic.

But as KUCB's Lauren Rosenthal reports, the volcano's done enough to stop regional air service to western Alaska. 

After a month-long outage, St. Paul’s federal radio weather service is finally back up and running.

The station broadcasts storm alerts and forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and it’s popular with crab fishermen working off St. Paul and St. George. The signal suddenly dropped out in April as the crab fishery was winding down.

Courtesy of Theo Chesley

Pavlof Volcano continued to erupt over the weekend, spitting a plume of ash that reached 22,000 feet into the sky. 

That's not enough to affect international air traffic. But it was enough to cancel air service to the village of Sand Point. A PenAir representative confirms that planes haven't made it to Sand Point since Thursday, but declined to say exactly why. 

Ashfall at the Sand Point airport is probably to blame, according to Rick Wessels. He's a geophysicist for the Alaska Volcano Observatory, and he's monitoring Pavlof, which has been sprinkling ash on Sand Point all weekend.

Pipa Escalante/KUCB

Firefighters responded to a fast-spreading tundra fire along the S-curves on Airport Beach Road Saturday afternoon.

The fire broke out just before 5 p.m. on a hilltop owned by the Ounalashka Corporation, next to the Dutch Harbor post office and Gas 'n' Go. No buildings were damaged, and no injuries were reported. But more than 100,000 square feet of tundra and grass burned up.

City council made big progress on the 2014 budget at their meeting last night, but that didn’t spare them from a tough discussion about funding capital projects.

In all, the city is planning $60 million in intensive upgrades to utility plants. About $40 million of that will come from loans and grants, but the rest will need to be paid out of the general fund. After a presentation by Mike Hubbard, of the Financial Engineering Company, council hammered out a basic strategy for handling these costs.

View from Sand Point of Pavlof Volcano Erupting on May 14, 2013 -- Credit: Gina Stafford

Pavlof Volcano put on a light show for residents of several communities on the Alaska Peninsula Tuesday night. Activity at the volcano has increased, and it’s spewing ash up to 20,000 feet.

Cold Bay resident Molly Watson was watching Pavlof for signs of activity from her kitchen window on Tuesday evening.

“And I’d kind of given up, thinking ‘ehn, we’re not going to see anything else, just smoke.’ As soon as I mentally thought that, and I was actually writing it to a friend -- I was emailing -- and sure enough, I saw this spark, and I was like ‘what is that?!’”

Lauren Rosenthal/KUCB

Atka is home to just 71 people. But that’s about to change. As KUCB’s Lauren Rosenthal reports, the city’s processing plant wants to quadruple its workforce -- and with that, the community is ramping up a campaign to replace its dilapidated clinic.

Mount Pavlof steaming, with fresh lava flow on its north flank/Credit: Brandon Wilson

Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory were able to get clear views of two restless volcanoes today. The images show that both Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutian Islands and Pavlof Volcano on the Alaska Peninsula are oozing lava.

Cleveland started erupting earlier this month, with six separate explosions sending up multiple ash clouds. The volcano has been quiet since early last week, but the new satellite imagery shows a lava flow coming out of the southeastern side of the crater. The flow is about 100 yards wide, and a mile long.