BAPTISM BY FIRE

PALMER — A fire not far off the beaten path in the Mat-Su Borough points to a question every homeowner should ask: Will fire trucks respond when you need them?

Frank Shor, a farmhand who ran for borough mayor last year, said he had no idea his cabin on East Matanuska Road, off the Glenn Highway just up from the Parks-Glenn interchange, wasn’t protected.

That is, he didn’t know until the cabin burned down early Sunday morning.

“This is unreal. This is a state-maintained road, you know. And I cannot get a fire truck down here,” he said.

Shor knows probably better than most victims of house fires how the blaze started. He said his stovepipe got hot and started a rough-hewn plank of wood smoldering. He woke up in the middle of the night — he’s still not sure exactly why — and spotted it.

“It was all red embers. There was no flame whatsoever,” he said.

Unlike a lot of evenings, Shor hadn’t gone to fetch water before going to bed Saturday night.

“If I’d had water I could’ve put it out,” he said. “It would have been that simple.”

He tried knocking the embers down and tried spraying them with a squirt bottle.

“The mist had air in it and caused it to flame up,” he said.

He got up on the roof to try and attack it that way. But it was no use. The cabin burned down.

Somewhere along the way he called the fire department, Shor said. But they didn’t come.

Dennis Brodigan, the borough’s director of Emergency Services, said the Greater Palmer Service Area stops a half-mile down East Matanuska Road. He said dispatchers got the call about the fire at 2:44 a.m.

“They went to dispatch Greater Palmer (Fire Service Area), but it was then caught by one of the dispatchers that it was actually in a no-fire zone area,” he said.

John Owen, director of public safety for the city of Palmer, said the fire service areas are based on taxation. So only the people who pay the taxes get the service. It’s a dilemma most borough fire service areas face. They don’t want to be tied up putting out a fire for someone who’s not paying the taxes and have to let a taxpayer’s house burn.

“Communities join together and pay fire service area taxes to the borough,” Owen said. “Some areas, particularly in outlying places, have chosen not to do that.”

Shor happened to live in one of those areas.

There are exceptions, Owen said. Fire trucks will come if someone’s life is in danger. If a home outside of a fire service area burns and the flames are threatening to move into the trees, trucks will come, though usually from the state’s Division of Forestry.

Owen said the initial call Shor made indicated that everyone was safe. So fire trucks wouldn’t come. What’s interesting, though, is that they did show up eventually, when Alaska Railroad employees noticed the fire later that morning and called it in, saying they weren’t sure if Shor had made it out in time.

“At that point, not realizing that it was the same place that had been called in at 3 in the morning, our dispatch sent out fire resources” from the Central Mat-Su Fire Department, the closest trucks available, Owen said.

Shor said he has a good relationship with the railroad. His cabin is very close to their tracks and he watches their equipment, makes sure no one vandalizes it or steals anything.

He said he’s grateful to the railroad for calling out the trucks, even if there wasn’t a whole lot they could do at that point. Though he did want to thank the firefighters for offering him vouchers for goods and services. He said railroad employees have lent him a hand now that his cabin is gone. The Salvation Army and the Red Cross have chipped in, too, giving him vouchers to stay at the Grand View Inn.

And though everyone made it out of the fire, he said one of his dogs is missing. The dog is an 18-month-old pitbull/Shar Pei mix.

“She’s a very cute puppy, very smart, and could be very offensive if you try to pin her down,” he said.

He said Monday he’s going to look for the dog and asks that if anyone sees her to give him a call at 775-4074.

“I don’t care if it’s 1:30 or 3 o’clock in the morning. I’ll be there,” he said.

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