MAT-SU — Voters in the Caswell Lakes and Kashwitna area will choose on Oct. 7 whether to establish a fire department in the area.

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly has agreed to put a question on the Borough ballot in the latest attempt to establish fire protection services in the Caswell Lakes area. The usual process has included a petition of area homeowners either to annex the area into Talkeetna or Willow or to start a new department. The number of signatures required on a petition has been cited as a main stumbling block in previous attempts at getting fire service to the area.  

Two meetings held last month in Caswell gauged public support for the new plan, and Borough Emergency Services Director Dennis Brodigan said resident response was overwhelmingly positive. “There were people who voiced concerns, but through the question-and-answering period we addressed those,” Brodigan said. “I wouldn’t say [support is] unanimous, but it’s really safe to say almost everyone was really in favor of it going on the ballot.”

Unlike other unprotected areas of the Borough — two examples being Point MacKenzie and the Glenn Highway east of Sutton — Caswell sits between two established fire service areas. To the north is the Talkeetna Fire Department. The Willow Fire Department is to the south.

In 11 years there have been seven failed attempts to bring fire protection to the Caswell area, Brodigan said. This attempt is different, however, because the Borough has agreed to bypass the petition process and because residents are organizing in greater numbers behind the plan than in previous years.

In the past 14 months, there have been four house fires in the area, Brodigan said, adding that those fires underscore what it means to live without fire protection. Willow and Talkeetna firefighters, no matter how much they wanted to, couldn’t respond. The only other option, the state’s Division of Forestry, is tasked only with putting out forest fires. Forestry does not put out house fires. The homes in Caswell were mostly left to burn.

Brodigan said that if a plan is voted in, Talkeetna and Willow can immediately start responding to Caswell fires under the Borough’s mutual aid agreements. Eventually, Caswell would build its own station and get its own trucks. And, immediately after the initiative goes through, training will start to get a group of Caswell firefighters ready for when a station comes online.

“What we want to do is if the residents do vote yes, then we’ll put on a combined Talkeetna, Willow and Caswell Lakes basic firefighting training up there,” Brodigan said.

Moving forward is contingent on the outcome of the Oct. 7 vote. Homeowners will essentially be asked to raise their own taxes, likely by $300 per $100,000 of assessed value per year, to pay for the department.

Brodigan didn’t offer any predictions about the outcome of that vote, but said that if there ever were a time to start a department, now seems like that time.

“For the first time in a long time I think we’ve got a real chance of making this happen,” Brodigan said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiers-man.com or 352-2270.