Borough to aid fire district for Caswell Lakes

CASWELL LAKES — After 11 years of failed attempts, it looks like the stars may finally be aligned for local fire service here.

The stretch of the Parks Highway from Mile 80.9 to Mile 96 is one of many unprotected areas in the Mat-Su Borough. Other unprotected areas exist. North of Sutton there’s no Borough fire protection with the exception of a private fire department in Chickaloon. Point MacKenzie has no protection, nor does the Palmer Hay Flats. Caswell Lakes also has no Borough fire protection, but is bookended by local fire districts. Directly to the north, Talkeetna homeowners can count on the Talkeetna Fire Department. To the south, there’s the Willow Fire Department.

Dennis Brodigan, Mat-Su Borough director of Emergency Services, said that in the last 14 months, four homes have burned in the Caswell Lakes area. Borough firefighters, even though many of them were itching to respond, could not legally fight the fires. Homeowners had to stand by and watch their houses burn.

“By Borough code, the Borough-run fire service areas are not allowed to respond into a non-fire service area,” Brodigan said at a meeting this week in Caswell.

“We’ve just felt handcuffed in the whole thing,” he said. “Our Willow firefighters and our Talkeetna firefighters are really put under a lot of stress because this is what they do.”

But those burned homes have helped spur a fresh look at the problem and a new set of solutions.

Previous efforts to bring fire service to the area have generally taken the form of attempting to get the Willow or Talkeetna fire service areas to annex Caswell Lakes, Brodigan said. There’s another option — creating a new Caswell Lakes Fire Service Area.

Both options require a petition process and more than 50 percent of property owners have to agree to the change. That’s a tall order, considering Willow and Talkeetna were essentially asked to spread their services thinner. Trying to bring protection to the area isn’t helped by the fact that Caswell has a high number of property owners who don’t live in the area, and who have less of an interest in seeing property taxes raised to pay for fire service.

The petition was just the start. After signatures were gathered, the proposal would be put to a vote.

But this time is different, Brodigan said. Now, the assembly has asked Borough Manager John Duffy to explore and see if creating a fire service area is feasible. This week’s meeting at the Sheep Creek Lodge was the first of two planned for the area. The second is set for Saturday at 2 p.m. at the lodge.

Assemblyman Tom Kluberton, whose district includes Caswell, said that essentially the assembly is looking at the possibility of substituting a resolution for the petition process. If the assembly is sure there’s enough support in Caswell for starting a fire service area, it will consider passing a resolution putting the issue to a vote.

“I don’t expect that will be a hard sell,” Kluberton said.

The meetings are a way of showing public support. If this week was any measure, the support is there. Many attendees asked questions less directed at the pros and cons of voting for fire service and more about what the service could look like.

Where would a fire station go? Ideally near the intersection of Parks Highway and Hidden Hills Road, Kluberton said.

How old do you have to be to be a firefighter? Lance Barve, chief of the Willow Fire Department, said his youngest is 18, his oldest, older than 70.

A show-of-hands vote showed an overwhelming majority supported creating a fire department. A quick scan of the room showed only one attendee who did not raise his hand.

David Straub, an area dog musher, said he was wary of the Borough’s proposition. Straub made headlines recently when a long-standing beef he maintains with the Borough’s animal control department manifested in a lien he placed on the animal shelter, which briefly delayed the shelter’s planned expansion.

The Borough is asking residents to raise their own property taxes but may end up building a department that doesn’t respond quickly to fires and doesn’t have a noticeable impact.

“I almost think just let Forestry deal with it,” Straub said.

Straub was referencing the state’s Division of Forestry. Forestry will respond only to structure fires that have the potential to become forest fires. If flames aren’t likely to spread into the trees, that agency won’t show. If Forestry does respond, it will focus on the trees, not the home.

If a fire service area is voted in, Brodigan said area residents will have to vote to raise property taxes. The maximum allowed is 3 mills. In hard dollars, that’s $300 for every $100,000 of a home’s assessed value. With $70 million in assessed property within the proposed service area boundaries, that leads to $210,000 in annual tax revenue.

That’s not enough to buy a firehouse, but would pay to run the department and train firefighters.

Brodigan and Kluberton said there had been attempts in the state Legislature to write $3 million into this year’s state capital budget — $2 million to build a fire station and $1 million to buy a fire engine and a fire tanker.

That money, Brodigan said, never made it into the budget because Caswell hadn’t voted in a service area. But next year it will be on the Borough’s priority list again and, if homeowners have voted to start a service area, will stand a much greater chance.

In response to a question about how long it would take to get a firehouse built and a department up and running, Kluberton said that if the vote favors starting a department, mutual aid from Willow and Talkeetna will begin immediately. Those handcuffed responders will be free to fight any fire in the area.

Brodigan said he’s been told that in 11 years there have been seven attempts to bring fire service to the area. Between the assembly’s efforts, the prospects of legislative funding and the support of residents, he’s hopeful this attempt will be successful.

“I’m very optimistic that something can happen this time,” Brodigan said. “I just don’t know if we’ll have the opportunity like this [again].”

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