NORTHWESTERN ALASKA-All eyes have been on Nome as they await their shipment of diesel and gasoline to be delivered by the first ever Mid-winter Bering Sea re-fueling.

But, there are other villages that face the same or increased risk of running out of fuel as the the winter progresses. Two of those villages, Noatak and Kobuk, run the risk of no heating fuel for their homes. The community of Noatak ran out of heating fuel on Saturday. The store there has been borrowing fuel from the pump house while the village has been put on rationing. Each family is allowed 10 gallons of the precious liquid. Heating oil prices are running between $9 and $10 a gallon.

Some of the residents of the community have taken to burning their drying and smoking rack poles because of the lack. Weather has been very poor and it has hampered wood gathering in the area. People have been calling each other up on the VHS looking for spare fuel to heat their homes.

In Kobuk, weather has hampered fuel delivery there. Their fuel shipments have been arriving by plane, but the last few weeks, the weather conditions have been such that those deliveries have been halted. The community has been plagued with power outages because of the shortage. Fuel has been borrowed from the water pump station in that community as well. Snow removal has been ongoing at the local air strip and residents hope for a plane with fuel to arrive either today or tomorrow.