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Abstract Increased Arctic air temperatures and evaporative fluxes have coincided with more frequent and destructive high‐latitude wildfires. Arctic fires impact ecosystems and people, especially at the community‐level by degrading air quality, destroying agriculture, and threatening life and property. Central Eastern Interior (CEI) Alaska is one such region that has recently experienced the effects of wildfire activity related to warming air temperatures. To improve our ability to identify fire weather events and assess their potential for extreme outbreaks at actionable lead times relevant to fire weather forecasters and managers, new metrics and approaches need to be established and applied toward understanding the physical mechanisms underlying such wildland fire characteristics. Our study uses a new, regional atmospheric circulation metric, the Alaska Blocking Index (ABI), to describe midtropospheric air pressure around Alaska, which is subsequently related to CEI fire weather conditions at the Predictive Service Area (PSA) scale in climatological and extreme events frameworks. Of note, during years of high fire activity, Build‐Up Index (BUI) values tend to be anomalously high during the duff and drought phases across the CEI PSAs, though comparatively lower BUI values are still associated with high fire activity in the Tanana Zone‐South (AK03S) PSA. Likewise, extreme BUI values are strongly tied to high ABI values and well‐defined upper‐air ridging circulation patterns in the duff and drought periods. The statistical skill of mean daily ABI values in the 6–10 day period preceding extreme duff period BUI values is modest (τ² > 14%) in the Upper Yukon Valley (AK02) PSA, a hotbed of wildland fire activity. Extremes in ABI and CEI BUI often occur in tandem, yielding regional predictability of upper‐air weather patterns and extremes and underlying surface weather conditions, by statistical and/or dynamical forecast models, imperative for local community and governmental organizations to effectively manage and allocate Alaska's fire weather resources. 

The late-season extreme fire activity in Southcentral Alaska during 2019 was highly unusual and consequential. Firefighting operations had to be extended by a month in 2019 due to the extreme conditions of hot summer temperature and prolonged drought. The ongoing fires created poor air quality in the region containing most of Alaska’s population, leading to substantial impacts to public health. Suppression costs totaled over $70 million for Southcentral Alaska. This study’s main goals are to place the 2019 season into historical context, provide an attribution analysis, and assess future changes in wildfire risk in the region. The primary tools are meteorological observations and climate model simulations from the NCAR CESM Large Ensemble (LENS). The 2019 fire season in Southcentral Alaska included the hottest and driest June–August season over the 1979–2019 period. The LENS simulation analysis suggests that the anthropogenic signal of increased fire risk had not yet emerged in 2019 because of the CESM’s internal variability, but that the anthropogenic signal will emerge by the 2040–2080 period. The effect of warming temperatures dominates the effect of enhanced precipitation in the trend towards increased fire risk.