Big Lake fire tabbed arson

BIG LAKE — Alaska State Troopers are labeling as arson a fire lit Sunday in a trash can in the men’s room of the mall containing Steve’s Food Boy.

Firefighters would add a different descriptor — close call.

“That’s one of those buildings that we’ve always worried about and we’re constantly thinking about if a fire starts in different areas of the building what are we going to do about it,” said West Lakes Fire Chief Bill Gamble Monday. “It paid off yesterday.”

The fire was reported just before 11:30 a.m., according to a trooper report. Troopers say no one was injured.

The mall is a wood-frame building, and a large one at that. All of the businesses inside share a common ceiling, which means there’s a lot of open space between the ceiling tiles and the underside of the roof.

“If it had gotten up in there and started running through that space it could’ve been really bad,” Gamble said.

James Keel, a battalion chief with the West Lakes Fire Department, was first on scene. He said someone had entered the bathroom, saw smoke, shut the door and called 911.

“It’s a public men’s bathroom, it’s in the center of the mall between the art gallery and Donna’s Corner, which is a dress boutique,” Keel said.

Keel said he didn’t see anything when he showed up in the parking lot. When he opened the door to the men’s room it was a different story.

“I saw heavy, billowing, black smoke,” he said.

He said firefighters were able to contain the flames in the bathroom. Smoke damage did spread to other parts of the mall, though. He mentioned in particular the deli counter at Steve’s Food Boy. None of the businesses, he said, had gotten back to him with an estimate for how much inventory was lost.

Troopers estimate damage to the building at $10,000 to $25,000.

At Steve’s Food Boy, store manager Jerry Hill said the store was closed only briefly.

“They pretty much had to kill the power to the place and evacuate everybody,” Hill said. “The store was only actually closed for about two hours.”

As far as inventory goes, he said the store had to clean out the warm food kept in the deli section, since that product was exposed and got some soot on it.

“We’re real fortunate our fire department responded immediately, because it’s only like 100 yards down the road,” he said.

They did some clean up wiping off the soot around the store. And as of Monday morning, everything was mostly back to normal, Hill said.

Well, almost everything, he said. “The bathrooms are out of commission.”

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