Meadow Lakes auto shop destroyed in Friday afternoon fire

MEADOW LAKES -- Fire destroyed both stories of the Motor Rage Auto Shop near Mile 51 of the Parks Highway Friday afternoon, causing the busy highway to slow for miles in both directions as firefighters from several stations, along with State Forestry and local utilities, responded to fight the blaze.

No one was injured in the fire, officials said.

While no official cause has been determined, officials and witnesses say it is likely the fire started with an electrical box near the side of the building.

Manager Antares Viens was inside the building when he said he heard a strange sound coming from the area of an outside wall, but there was no smoke inside the building, and he went outside to investigate saw nothing amiss.

“I could hear it, but I couldn’t see it,” he said.

He soon realized the fire was inside the wall. “I picked up the phone to call 911, because they say you’re supposed to call from home so they know your location. But the phone lines were right next to the electrical; they were already fried.”

In the meantime, Thomas “Wolverine” Linden and Autumn Boyds were driving by and saw smoke coming from the roof of the building. They called 911 and immediately pulled into the lot to help.

“He just threw it in park, left the door open and ran in there,” Boyds said.

Linden said he knew he had to act fast.

“I just started yelling, ‘Get out! Get out!’” he said.

Jeff Griffin was upstairs asleep when the fire broke out.

“I woke up to just a feeling that I couldn’t breathe right, and I looked out the window and saw smoke," Griffin said.

He said he tried pouring some water out the window to extinguish whatever was causing the smoke, but realized the fire was much too big for that.

“I heard someone yelling, ‘You gotta get out of there!’ and I just got out."

Viens, who had also called 911 on his cell phone, managed to pull a racing snowmachine and four-wheeler out of the building. He then grabbed the box that held the keys to the cars parked in the lot outside and was met by Linden and Boyds, who helped determine the correct keys for each car and began moving vehicles away from the building.

“The keys were all sort of jumbled. I was like, 'Just don’t hand me something with a stick shift,” Boyds said. “I don’t drive a stick shift. First keys he hands me turned out to be the Corvette. I was like, 'Oh my god.”

Casey Cook, Emergency Manager for the Mat-Su Borough, said the top floor of the structure was fully ablaze when firefighters arrived at around 3 p.m. Within an hour, over 35 firefighters from the West Lakes, Central and Houston departments were working on hand, assisted by ambulances from West Lakes and Willow plus personnel from the Division of Forestry, MEA and Enstar.

Chief Bill Gambell said because of the hazardous materials inside the building, which included tires, gasoline and engine oil, the fire burned especially hot and fast.

“Plus it’s a metal building, which kind of holds the heat in. It feeds itself,” he said.

Because there was no source of water on site, tankers from several stations took turns providing water for firefighters, re-filling at stations on either side of the fire and returning to the scene.

Viens, the manager, said while Good Samaritans managed to help save most of the cars parked directly in front of the building, several snowmachines, an ultralight, a side-by-side UTV and “dozens of tires – the good tires” were lost in the fire. “It’s just … I can’t even imagine the cost of it all right now,” he said. “I still can’t believe how fast it spread.”

If not for volunteers who just showed up to help, things could have been a lot worse, he added.

For Griffin, who had lived in the upstairs apartment for the last four years, the loss was complete. He exited the building wearing only his pajamas, in bare feet.

“Someone gave me these shoes here,” he said. “I didn’t even grab my wallet, nothing."

Firefighters said Red Cross officials were expected on hand to assist Griffin with immediate housing and other needs.

Christina Seine is a freelance writer from the Mat-Su Valley.