Former reporter recalls experience covering Miller’s Reach Fire

Twenty years ago, I was fresh out of college and a few months into my first “real” job as a reporter at the Frontiersman. To say I was green would be an understatement, but in June 2006, I grew up both professionally and personally due to the Miller’s Reach Fire.

A week before the fire started, I found myself on a Blackhawk helicopter with then Gov. Tony Knowles, doing a press trip to a smaller wildfire near Prator Lake that had been extinguished. That seemed a bit surreal to me, but just a few days later, the Miller’s Reach Fire erupted, and what seemed like total chaos began.

I found myself as a 22-year-old reporter juggling local, state and even federal agencies, trying to get the latest information on a fire that changed directions at a moment’s notice. In one instance, the Division of Forestry took reporters down Big Lake Road to see the destruction, only to have the fire change directions and block us in for hours. The Miller’s Reach Fire taught me more about the importance of journalism than any college course. I felt tremendous responsibility toward thousands of people who were relying on what I learned, including my own family, which had to evacuate our longtime home. This was a time before you found out the news in real time on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. I realized my words were telling the story, delivering news that literally changed people’s lives.

I remember being in Big Lake, trying to track down the latest information in a frantic environment, all the while calling our evacuated home, praying the answering machine would pick up, meaning the house was still there. We were lucky. Many others were not. And to me, that was the real story.

More than anything, the Miller’s Reach Fire taught me compassion. Looking into the tear-filled eyes of someone who lost their home and everything they owned was one of the hardest things, something they don’t teach you in journalism school. I was a complete stranger to them, yet they opened up and told their stories. Their words, their memories, put a face to the Miller’s Reach Fire. I owed them my compassion and empathy in telling their stories in the newspaper.

For many people, lifetimes of memories were gone in an instant. The fire didn’t discriminate — one home burned to the ground, but the neighboring house remained untouched. Nearly 350 structures were consumed by the 37,300-acre blaze. You saw the love and compassion of neighbors helping neighbors working to evacuate homes and setting up hoses in hopes of saving their homes. You saw the care of complete strangers helping other complete strangers at Red Cross shelters. You saw the generosity of a community united, with donations pouring in from all corners of the Valley to help ease the pain.

Alaskans are hearty people by nature I think. In the aftermath of the Miller’s Reach Fire, the charred Houston and Big Lake communities were down, but they were definitely not out. The resiliency of the communities was tremendous. The recovery was long — there are visual reminders everywhere still today — but impressive. Homes and cabins were rebuilt, more now than ever before. And while homes can be rebuilt, the memories of the Miller’s Reach Fire can’t be erased.

The Miller’s Reach Fire was terrifying, but it taught me a lot about the resolve of the Valley. It showed me that even in the scariest of times, when the possibility exists of losing everything, the good in people still comes out. More than anything, the caring actions of a community uniting to help one another makes me proud of the place I call home.

Casey Ressler (casey@alaskavisit.com) was a reporter and editor at the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman from 1996-2006, before leaving the paper for the Mat-Su Convention & Visitors Bureau, where he is currently the marketing and communications manager.