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Hot Times on the Ring of Fire:  Biologists Flee Volcano

When refuge biologists first felt volcanic Kasatochi Island shake in August of 2008, they dismissed it as just another fact of life in the volatile Aleutian Islands.  But after a few days of the tremors becoming more frequent, Ray Buchheit and Chris Ford started getting a little anxious.  Volcanoes were on everyone’s mind as two other volcanoes on the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, Okmok Caldera and Mt. Cleveland, had already erupted unexpectedly and explosively within the prior three weeks.  Still, no one suspected that long dormant Kasatochi Volcano was just days away from a cataclysmic eruption that would bury the entire island - the refuge cabin, the bird cliffs, the sea lion rookery – and send the biologists fleeing for their lives.

Buchheit and Ford were the only people on Kasatochi, 1100 miles southwest of Anchorage.  The refuge’s ship M/V Tiglax brought them to the island in May and would pick them up the end of August.   They lived in a trapper’s cabin from the 1920s and studied seabirds as biologists have been doing every summer on Kasatochi for 13 years.   Kasatochi was lush and green and boasted a beautiful blue lake in a deep caldera.  A hundred thousand least and crested auklets, storm petrels and puffins lived on the small, 700 acre, island qualifying it as one of the best islands in the central Aleutians for bird study.

On August 5, Buchheit and Ford first voiced their concerns over the radio to biologist Lisa Spitler, who manned the office on the closest inhabited island - Adak Island, 50 miles away.  Spitler immediately turned to the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) volcano monitoring website which gave no indication of trouble brewing.  Spitler followed up with a call to the AVO, but Kasatochi was considered dormant with no historically recorded eruptions.  AVO did not maintain monitoring instruments on Kasatochi and could not detect exactly what was going on.  Disbelief mingled with anxiety as tremors increased and became detectable to the AVO. 

On August 6, the refuge, the regional office, and the AVO all concurred that evacuation was the prudent choice and Spitler set to work trying to arrange it.  The problem was that the M/V Tiglax was 24 hours away, the nearest Coast Guard ship was 24 hours away, there were apparently no fishing boats in the area, and a Coast Guard helicopter on Adak that could have easily accomplished the rescue was broken down and needing a part that was. . .  24 hours away.  Finally Spitler lined up local fisherman Al Giddings who would be ready to sail at dawn from Adak in his 32-foot boat, Homeward Bound, to accomplish the rescue. 

Dawn of August 7 came with rapidly increasing tremors and a strong, sulphur smell.  About 10 am a nine-minute earthquake caused rock falls and convinced Buchheit and Ford it was time to head to the beach. The next few hours were tense as tremors intensified and neither the two on the beach nor Spitler in Adak could raise the Homeward Bound on the radio.  It wasn’t even certain if Giddings could get his small boat across the rough, open water to reach isolated Kasatochi.  Buchheit and Ford contemplated launching their skiff and had an emergency course plotted in their GPS for the nearest island, Great Sitkin Island 20 miles away.  But the day was foggy and the surf was rough.  At sea, they wouldn’t be visible to their rescuer.  Finally, seven miles out from Kasatochi, Giddings came on the radio and assured all he would make it to the island.  When the Homeward Bound arrived, no time was wasted in abandoning the shaking island leaving gear and computers behind.  Just a few hours into their journey to Adak,  Buchheit, Ford, Giddings and deckhand, Eric Mochizuki did not even hear the mountain erupt, blowing ash to 45,000 feet, burying the island with scorching pyroclastic flows, and disrupting air travel from Anchorage to Seattle.

Two weeks later, Buchheit stepped ashore on a new Kasatochi courtesy of an AVO helicopter carrying scientists to document the eruption.  Buchheit said that “It was impressive; the way it had changed.  Definitely a sight to see.”  The refuge cabin was buried under up to 100 feet of ash, a new coastline extended hundreds of yards beyond the old coast and the birds were gone.  Buchheit tried to find the exact spot of the cabin but “the ground got too hot.  I didn’t think I needed to go any farther.”  Sea lions had returned to the beach but only about half of their former number and only two pups were observed with the herd. 

There was virtually nothing green left showing on the island and biologists estimate it will take decades for plants to re-colonize.  Fish & Wildlife Service botanist Steve Talbot, who has pre-eruption data from Kasatochi  and saw the island after its’ eruption, couldn’t help but be intrigued by the possibility of studying the return of the plants.  Replacing Kasatochi as an annual seabird monitoring site is a problem refuge biologist Jeff Williams will face.  Annual monitoring sites are key to providing trend data and 13 years of study on Kasatochi helped the refuge paint a picture of what was happening with seabirds in the central Aleutians.

The refuge owes a debt to Al Giddings and his deckhand Eric Mochizuki for their rescue mission which was a lot more daring than they probably realized at the time and to Lisa Spitler for her work in setting up the rescue and maintaining constant communication with Buchheit and Ford.  According to Marianne Guffanti of AVO, “Kasatochi is yet another example of a very important lesson we are learning in volcanology.  We don’t necessarily have much time from when a volcano first shows signs of unrest until when it can erupt explosively.”  Needless to say, this presents special challenges for managing a refuge of volcanic islands on the Ring of Fire.

To learn more about the refuge’s restless volcanoes and see more images visit the Alaska Volcano Observatory website www.avo.alaska.edu

Biologist Ray Buchheit returns to the site of the refuge cabin two weeks after his evacuation from Kasatochi. Hot pyroclastic flows buried the cabin. Photo Credit: : Chris Waythomas/AVO/USGS

Kasatochi caldera in 2004 Photo Credit: Brie Drummond/USFWS

Kasatochi caldera two weeks after the eruption. Photo Credit:Chris Waythomas/AVO/USGS

Last updated: April 5, 2012