Blaze guts Fairview Loop home

WASILLA — A family on Fairview Loop was displaced Monday afternoon when fire tore through their split-level home.

“That was a stubborn one,” said Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele on scene at the blaze. “We had the interior and the attic burning at the same time.”

Late Monday afternoon, with the fire all but extinguished, firefighters with chainsaws cut through the home’s walls. Others stood in the attached garage under a hole where the roof used to be. Flames less than a foot tall flickered on the roof.

Steele said the fire appears to have started outside the front door of the house, then climbed up the exterior wall, where it burned through to the interior and up into the attic.

No one was hurt.

Crews were on scene by 4:30 p.m. and had the fire under control within an hour and a half, Steele said. By 6 p.m. they were dousing small flames and soaking down smoldering hot spots. He said the fire was fought offensively, with crews inside the home almost the entire time.

The fire is the second in the Valley’s core area in a week. On April 15, flames ripped through a home on West Arctic Avenue, harming no one, according to a Palmer Police Department press statement. The structure was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived.

Steele said firefighters haven’t decided definitively on a cause of Monday’s blaze. After talking to the homeowner, though, Steele said a cigarette butt or some other “discarded smoking material” likely started the blaze.

About a dozen Central Mat-Su vehicles responded to the scene, bringing with them more than two dozen firefighters. Steele said Big Lake and Meadow Lakes fire departments moved trucks into his department’s coverage area to stand by.

Parts of the home’s lower level appeared to be salvageable, Steele said; however, “In all likelihood the insurance [company] will total it out.”