Forestry station trashed

PALMER — Two people have been arrested thus far as law enforcement look for the group of people who trashed and stole from a state Division of Forestry building.

“Certainly with picking up these two guys In Kenai, it gives us a really good trail to follow,” said Alaska State Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters. “There’s a lot of work still.”

Sgt. Scott McBride with the Kenai Police Department said the two men arrested were David Fetters, 24, of Palmer, and William Gregory, 24, of Kenai. Fetters was driving a white 2002 Ford pickup Sunday when he was stopped for speeding in Kenai. He also didn’t have a license.

McBride said Fetters was arrested for driving without a license and the pickup was released to Gregory.

“On (Tuesday) we got a message from the troopers that said the vehicle that was involved with the Fetters arrest was stolen,” in the break-in at the Forestry building, McBride said.

So police went looking for Gregory, found him, and put him in jail on a vehicle theft charge. While they were booking him in, McBride said, officers also added a theft charge to Fetters’ case. They also seized the pickup.

“It wasn’t pristine but it wasn’t totally thrashed either,” McBride said.

As to whether Gregory and Fetters were involved in the break-in, McBride said he can’t say and neither are charged with the Palmer thefts, only with theft by receiving or possessing stolen property.

“It could be that one of these guys either was given or bought the truck from somebody,” McBride said.

The Ford was one of five vehicles stolen from the parking lot during the break-in and one of nearly 20 that were ransacked.

The stolen vehicles — four pickups and a Subaru — all belonged to Forestry firefighters fighting blazes in the Interior. Both the Gannett Glacier hot-shot crew and the Pioneer Peak hot-shot crew are stationed at the building on Woodworth Loop just off Trunk Road. Members of both crews had left their cars there when they went to Fairbanks.

Peters said three of the five vehicles have since been recovered. Two were abandoned with some of the stolen goods in them. Troopers are still looking for a gold 2002 Toyota Tundra with license plates EZB939 and a blue 2000 Ford F-250 with license plates EYH168.

Norm McDonald with Forestry said the thieves trashed Forestry’s building. They broke into locked doors, ripped open lockers and stole computers, laptops, climbing equipment, chainsaws, fire pumps, generators, bicycles and snowboards. Some of the stuff belonged to firefighters, some to the state.

“It looked like a bomb had gone off in there,” McDonald said. “There was no rhyme or reason to what they took.”

For instance: One room contained 15 chainsaws,

“They didn’t take any of them and then another room they took two chainsaws,” McDonald said.

The thieves apparently tried to steal two more vehicles but didn’t manage to navigate the route they chose to exit the parking lot, which ran through a ditch.

“There were a couple of two wheel-drives they tried to take but they got stuck,” McDonald said.

The parking lot, he said, is gated in the front but not on the sides with the ditch. Smashing through the gate, he said, might have been a better idea.

“It would’ve been a lot easier for them. It’s an aluminum gate,” he said.

He said that luckily the Pioneer Peak crew was scheduled to have their days off this week and was heading back from Fairbanks anyway. The Gannett Glacier crew came back a few days early.

“Their minds weren’t in firefighting when they heard about it,” he said.

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