Important Takeaways:

• Almost 300,000 residents in Alaska’s largest city are bracing for an explosive volcanic eruption.
• Mount Spurr, a 11,000-foot-tall volcano that sits just 81 miles from the largest city in the state, is due to blow this year for the first time in 30 years.
• City officials in Anchorage have raised the emergency planning level to Level 2, meaning that they will ramp up communication with the public about the threat and public safety agencies will prepare to launch into eruption response protocols.
• ‘If it’s during the school day, as soon as we get word that an eruption has occurred, we’re going to be reaching out to the Volcano Observatory,’ said Anchorage School District Office of Emergency Management Director Jared Woody.
• ‘We’re going to be working with the National Weather Service, as well as (the city) to find out what are the anticipated impacts to the city. Is the ash plume coming towards us at this point?’
• Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) say Mount Spurr is ‘moving closer to an eruption’ that could happen in ‘weeks to months.’
• On March 7, the volcano began releasing elevated levels of gas from its summit and a side vent that last erupted in 1992.
• These emissions are the latest development in a period of unrest this volcano has been experiencing since April 2024, when it started shuddering with small earthquakes — the first clue that new magma was rising toward the volcano’s vents.

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