2 more blazes in downtown Talkeenta raise suspicion

TALKEETNA — Three suspicious downtown fires in 12 days have officials in the area sounding the alert about a possible arsonist.

“The first fire we were happy we did a nice save. We stopped it from spreading. The second fire we thought that was a bit suspicious and by the third one we’re concerned that it may be somebody setting the fires,” Talkeetna Fire Department Captain Eric Chappel said. “We are asking people in the community that if they see anything, anybody around structures that shouldn’t be there, to call Alaska State Troopers and report it.”

The first fire was reported Nov. 1 when a downtown food truck that sells dumplings in the summer, but that was shuttered for the winter, caught fire.

Then the flames spread to Denali Dry Goods and to a building housing Denali Zipline Tours.

Chappel’s chief, Ken Farina, said at the time he was worried that with buildings packed so closely together in downtown half the businesses could have gone up in smoke.

Things were quiet until this weekend, when two fires were reported in quick succession, both on I Street. In fact, they were across the street from one another.

The first one was reported sometime around 9:30 p.m., Saturday.

“The trailer when we showed up was completely engulfed the roof was collapsed,” Chappel said. “We did save an adjoining trailer that was about 15 feet away. It got some heat damage but we stopped it from catching on fire.”

With the trailer already fully involved when they arrived, Chappel said, all they could do was try to keep it from spreading. The trailer was a total loss.

It also was unoccupied with no heat or electricity. Its owners had shut everything off and left for the winter; a pretty common phenomenon in Talkeetna.

Common enough, in fact, that the exact same things were true of the weekend’s second fire, which was reported less than 24 hours later, at about 6:30 p.m., Sunday. This one was an unoccupied log cabin whose owners were gone for the winter.

“There was a shed that was completely destroyed next to the house. The house itself sustained considerable damage,” Chappel said.

But the structure wasn’t fully involved when firefighters arrived, so crews were able to go inside and managed to douse the fire.

He said it’s not clear whether the fire spread from the shed to the house, or the house to the shed.

“We’re leaving that up to the fire marshal to figure out,” Chappel said.

The fire marshal, in fact, has been up to Talkeetna for all three of these fires.

Asked how the two most recent fires were suspicious, Chappel reiterated that point about there not being an obvious ignition source.

“They were suspicious because they were unoccupied had no heating and no electricity to it and a structure like that shouldn’t catch fire,” he said.

This amount of fire activity in downtown Talkeetna also is unusual. Especially coming as it does on the heels of the September floods during which Talkeetna was arguably the hardest-hit community.

Chappel said so far crews have been able to handle the increase in fire activity.

“As a department we’ve had sufficient response. Of course, all of us kind of sit there at midnight and go boy we need some sleep,” he said. “We’re always looking for more volunteers but the guys we have fighting the fires right now are doing a good job.”

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