Incident commanders and local officials briefed residents at a community meeting in Healy on ongoing firefighting operations, evacuation boundaries and mapping efforts for the Bear Creek fire.

Zach Fleming, operations chief for the Alaska incident team, said crews are building an indirect dozer line from the Parks Highway on the fire's north side, planning burnout operations where weather permits, and prioritizing structure protection in road-accessible areas. "All the ones that are road accessible, we're going in there mopping and mopping them up. If they're not road accessible, we're going in there hiking," Fleming said.

The team is concentrating work in the Bear Creek drainage and the Washington Road–June Creek area, Fleming said, noting accessibility has been a limiting factor. "Those 2 areas have been, difficult, just due to accessibility to get in there," he said. Crews are using local knowledge to direct efforts and supplementing ground work with bucket drops from helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

Jake Livingston, incident commander for Alaska Team 1, said life and property are the incident priorities. He named Washington Drive, June Creek and the Bear Creek area as focal points and described concern about the fire establishing across the Nenana River near Rex Bridge, which would expose additional forest and infrastructure. "Our intent is really to get as much work done on the spire as quickly as we can so people can return to their homes and then the utilities can, be reconnected," Livingston said.

Michael Brown, incident meteorologist from the National Weather Service office in Anchorage, told the meeting that recent weather has been spotty and that no significant winds were forecast in the next several days. He characterized the near-term pattern as "not extreme fire weather" and said temperatures were expected around 70 degrees with humidity near 40 percent, and only spotty, light rainfall possible.

Vicky Edge, the incident fire behavior analyst, said fuels are generally behaving in a low-to-moderate category because recent precipitation and higher humidity reduced surface fire intensity, though deeper ground fuels remain burning in places. "That ground fuel, the stuff that's under the surface, it didn't get wet at all. So it's continuing to burn," she said, adding the fire pattern is "very mosaic" with green patches that will not burn.

Forrest Shreve, Denali Borough emergency manager, reiterated that evacuation statuses have not been downgraded and explained how the borough uses incident recommendations and local notification time when deciding changes. He said the current evacuation-in-place recommendation covers the south side from Milepost 260 up to the Rex Bridge on both sides of the Parks Highway, and an in-go status on the east side from Rex Bridge up toward Milepost 277 and remote areas accessed by the Rex Trail.

On traffic management, Livingston said the incident team ordered two pilot-car contractors to help move traffic on the Parks Highway and expected pilot-car activity to continue about a week as operations allow.

Officials said mapping is ongoing and acreage numbers are provisional. A volunteer organizations representative said the reported acreage figure has held near "26,000" but cautioned that maps will change when higher-precision mapping is available. Shreve described the structures assessment as incomplete but said the incident had identified and begun notifying property owners; he reported "at least 17 structures lost" in preliminary tallies.

Local volunteer fire departments and mutual-aid crews from around the state were credited repeatedly for helping slow the fire's spread and protect structures. Livingston and Fleming emphasized that resources remain stretched and that operations will prioritize areas where personnel can safely work.

Where to get updates: officials said they post incident information on the Denali Borough website and Facebook page and recommended akfireinfo.com for statewide updates. Residents with property in affected areas were invited to meet with borough staff after the briefing to provide ownership information for damage verification and to receive follow-up contact.