Colorado man starts fire to prompt rescue

Frontiersman

MAT-SU — A Colorado man left wandering the woods six days was rescued by state Division of Forestry personnel on Monday.

Mat-Su Forester Norm McDonald said Forestry employees were running a routine training flight Monday afternoon in a de Haviland Beaver when they spotted smoke just west of Willow. They flew over the area and spotted John Anger, 46, waving a jacket. The Beaver called in a helicopter, which landed and picked Anger up.

A forestry employee who happened to be a medic checked Anger’s vital signs and found him to be in reasonably good condition, McDonald said. The helicopter crew put out the nearby fire.

McDonald said the fire, when the crew arrived, was burning through grass and brush over slightly more than a third of an acre. He said Anger started it to attract attention.

The story Anger gave troopers was that he had been dropped at a cabin on a nearby lake and had been told he could walk out of the area in a day.