Memories of Miller’s Reach Fire resurface

BIG LAKE — In the wake of the 20th anniversary ceremony commemorating the actions of first responders and local residents during the Miller’s Reach Fire, both old and untold stories of that week in Alaska’s history have risen to the surface in personal conversations.

At the ceremony held at West Lakes Fire Station 81 last weekend, a couple dozen Big Lake area property owners sat in reserved chairs to listen some of the key players in the fight against the 1996 wildfire recall aspects of the natural disaster.

Don and Joann Mueller, along with their daughter-in-law, Ina Mueller, were three such property owners who lost their beloved cabin to the blaze.

The Muellers lived in Anchorage at the time, but had owned the Big Lake property since 1979, shortly after Ina married into the family. The cabin was nestled near Big Beaver Lake, where Don and Joann’s grandchildren learned to swim. It was a holiday retreat enjoyed by the whole family multiple times a year.

“Every event was held at the cabin,” Ina remembered.

Less than a week before the fire started on that June Sunday in 1996, the Muellers had spent Memorial Day weekend at the cabin, taking their brand new ski boat out for a few test runs. By the time they returned, once the all-clear was given, not even the boat harbored in the lake survived unscathed.

The walls of the cabin were gone, bed frames melted, the boat trailer fried and cast iron pots obliterated, save for one handle. The shed containing a boat motor and an aluminum ladder, among other things, had also burned to the ground, and the boat itself bore several burn spots, Don said.

“All we had was puddles of metal on the ground,” he said.

Walking down the street from the cabin after the fire, Don came across a puzzling sight in the driveway of a burned-out, three-story home nearby. Among the wreckage were long strings of clear, sparkling material, some curled, some straight. When he went to pick one up, he discovered it was made of glass.

“The fire had got so hot that the glass was melting and the wind was stringing it out of the building as it burned,” Don deduced.

The Muellers cabin had been insured, and the family set their minds on rebuilding right away. But the insurance didn’t cover everything, and as they watched volunteers from the Lower 48 provide the uninsured with building materials and electrical work, the Muellers couldn’t help but wonder if they had made the right decision.

“It made us feel like we were getting penalized for having insurance,” Joann said.

Though that feeling “kinda stuck in your craw” at the time, Don said, he also fondly remembered everyone’s enthusiasm for helping each other out it whatever way possible. “Everyone was interested in working together,” he said.

Since then, the Muellers’ cabin has been rebuilt, and in 2010, Ina and her husband moved in permanently.

“It’s my home now,” Ina said.

A child’s perspective

Big Lake musher Wade Marrs, who took fourth in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race this year, was only 6 years old at the time of the Miller’s Reach Fire. His memories, he said, were likely vastly different from that of his mother and the other adults affected by the fire.

The day Marrs, his brother Michael and their mother Eileen were told not to return to their Big Lake home began much like any other day. They had gone into Wasilla to run some errands, and on the way back were surprised to find Big Lake covered in smoke. They drove past the road barricades to collect the 20 to 30 sled dogs from the house, then set out for Smith Ballfields in Wasilla, where many families and dog teams were already camped out.

Marrs said he remembered staying in a relatively comfortable four-person tent, cooking off a campfire and running around with the other kids and pets in the area, without fully understanding the gravity of the situation.

“I was more excited,” he said. “I thought it was really fun at that age to be out camping.”

Ultimately, the Marrs’ home did not burn, and the family was able to return about a week later. They had had to leave some other animals at home — including a few pigs that “freaked out from the smoke and broke free,” he said — but all survived the fire.

Marrs said he hadn’t talked about the events of that summer in a long time, but in hindsight realized that it had prepared him for last year’s Sockeye Fire.

“It put the idea in my mind that it could happen again and that we should always be ready for it,” he said.

‘Everybody slept with their boots on’

Cindy Bettine, president of ABC Travel Time in Wasilla, well remembered the effect of Miller’s Reach on her family.

At the time of the fire, Burt Munson was staying with Butcher and Bettine at their Rocky Lake home. Munson was a retired forest firefighter, and when calls for help started going out, he and Butcher jumped into action, forming what locals called “the Rocky Lake crew,” Bettine said. Three nearby water pumps from a past gold mining operation and chainsaws provided by neighbor Tim McGhan gave the crew and area residents what they needed: a fighting chance to save homes and put out the raging fire.

“The problem was the wind kept changing directions,” Bettine said.

Bettine’s mother’s home, located on the same Rocky Lake property, came closest to the fire. Bettine remembered falling spruce trees sticky with sap heated to “an explosive state” threatening to take down the building, with flames licking the walls from just 10 feet away.

Both homes were saved, but a cabin and bunkhouse on the property perished.

Once the Bettines called their own code-greens, they caravanned to Wasilla with friends Mike and Patsy Turner and Denise Gilbert to buy groceries for those fighting and seeking shelter from the fire.

For days, it was a 24-hour war zone.

“Everybody slept with their boots on,” Bettine said.

Alaska State Troopers tried multiple times to persuade Bettine, Butcher, Munson and their crew to evacuate, to no avail, Bettine said. They weren’t about to leave the lives they’d worked so hard to build, and risk losing it all.

Butcher was not available for comment, but Bettine said he always credits Munson as the hero in saving multiple Rocky Lake homes.

“He says he would have never been able to do what they did without Burt Munson,” she said.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.