Fire guts Palmer building

PALMER -- A fire destroyed a building near downtown Palmer Saturday morning, leaving the Alaska Cooperative Extension Service homeless.

The Palmer Fire Department responded at around 6 a.m. Saturday morning to a fire at Scenic View Offices at 809 S. Chugach. The office building was home to the Alaska Cooperative Extension Service as well as Excel Physical Therapy and other offices.

No one was injured in the blaze, which was confined to the building, but people in the next-door Palmer Senior Citizens Center were evacuated because of the smoke.

The exterior frame of the burned building still stands, but the inside was gutted by flames and fire officials are calling it a complete loss.

The fire was unusual for the city of Palmer, Fire Chief Dan Contini said Monday.

"It's so rare. It's so big … it was one of the longest fires we've responded to in a while," Contini said.

Palmer Assistant Fire Chief Barry Mothershead said on scene Saturday that the fire was well underway when the call came in, and it had probably been burning for some time. He said it apparently started in the roof line, so it was initially above detection of the smoke alarms.

Palmer Fire Department called for assistance from Central Mat-Su Fire Department, and dozens of firefighters from the two groups were spraying the fire until well into Saturday afternoon as police, ambulance and neighbors gathered in the nearby street.

The state fire marshal was also at the scene of the fire and, following an investigation, Contini said they are concluding it was probably an electrical fire.

"We can't put our finger on anything … but it keeps coming back to that -- it's probably of an electrical source," Contini said.

The basement part of the building was constructed in the 1940s, with the top addition added in the 1970s.

The Alaska Cooperative Extension Service is an educational service offered through a partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The office supplied programs and information on topics ranging from nutrition to gardening, water quality to arctic construction, as well offering 4-H and other youth development programs.