Lightning strike sends power surge into ice arena

WASILLA — An apparent lightning strike evacuated the Brett Memorial Ice Arena Wednesday, setting off alarms as smoke filled the building.

The arena was closed for just the morning and was back up and running by the afternoon.

Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele said the lightning didn’t strike the building. Where it struck is actually kind of a mystery, but it sent a lot of power into the lines near the arena that, in turn, sent power into the systems there.

“There was what looks like a power surge on some of the conduits going into the building,” Steele said. “There was a piece of OSB (board) that was placed up against the conduit and there were actually smoldering spots on that OSB where it had come through the conduits.”

He said the lines did what they were supposed to do — a “lightning arrester” lessened the impact, but the building still took a hit.

“We’re thinking there may be some damage to one of the compressor motors and that’s what smoked the building up,” Steele said.

Smoke alarms in the building went off and the building was evacuated. Steele said there weren’t a whole lot of people inside, mostly staff.

Kerry Marcott, operations specialist at the rink, speaking just after firefighters had left, said the rink had to shut down to wait for Mat-Su Borough electricians to check everything out. Reached Thursday, he said it turned out everything was fine. The arena was open by the afternoon.

But that doesn’t mean Wednesday wasn’t an interesting day. He said the lightning strike was audible to people working there.

“When it cracked it was like, ‘what the heck was that?’” Marcott said.

The building has been hit at least once before that he knows of, Marcott said. This strike seemed to be slightly larger than the last one.

Steele said that he’s been on a number of lightning-related calls, but the bulk were in North Carolina before he moved here. He said he could remember just a couple in more than two decades fighting fires in Wasilla.

Lightning as far as Alaska firefighters are concerned is mostly a phenomenon associated with wildfire season when lightning hits trees and touches off fires.

“There’s a tremendous number of lightning strikes that occur in Alaska,” Steele said. “Most of them are just not in populated areas, and particularly not here in the Valley.”

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