Grass fire consumes home

MAT-SU — After the weekend they had, the rain that fell Tuesday was probably a welcome relief to local firefighters.

The state’s Division of Forestry recorded five fires between Friday and Sunday. The biggest was on Helmaur Road where 6.4 acres burned. But one in Meadow Lakes Sunday was arguably just as scary.

“If we would have had any type of wind, 15 mph or more, that could have been a very serious,” West Lakes Fire Chief Bill Gamble said. “Where that fire was, it wouldn’t have mattered whether it was south wind or an east wind.”

The fire was on Spence Lane, which is off of Pittman Road about four miles from Parks Highway.

Gamble said the fire appeared to have started outdoors. The owner of the property told firefighters he was asleep on the sofa when he woke up, looked out the window, and saw his yard on fire.

Before it was put out, the fire had burned up a mobile home and two outbuildings.

“From what I could see they lost everything they own,” Gamble said.

Gamble said borough firefighters from Central, Houston and West Lakes responded as well as firefighters from the state’s Division of Forestry. He said that when the fire started a rescue class had been going on just down the road.

Of those firefighters, two had to be checked out by medics. One, a Houston firefighter, had heat exhaustion. He was given something to drink on scene and returned to normal.

“One firefighter from West Lakes was hit in the head by falling debris and was sent to the hospital to get checked out,” Gamble said.

The injuries were neither serious nor life-threatening.

Two other fires fought over the weekend were abandoned campfires that forestry was able to extinguish without much trouble. Spence and Helmaur took much more effort but by Tuesday Helmaur was neither hot nor smoky though personnel were still monitoring it.

With rain falling Tuesday emergency band radio had settled down. Forestry requires everyone to get a burn permit in the summer but the division’s website said that burning was allowed with a permit.

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