Officials: stay off thin ice

WASILLA — The Mat-Su Borough Dive Rescue Team is warning people to stay off of the fast-melting ice atop local lakes.

“It’s spooky both with pets and people t his time of year,” said team member Mike Klawitter.

Speaking Monday, he said that just the prior weekend he’d been called out to a report of kids walking on Wasilla Lake.

“The kids were off the ice by the time we got there,” he said.

But it made him think maybe people need a reminder — the ice is currently too thin to walk on in many spots. He said that in some places it’s undergoing “candling” which is a phenomenon in which vertical holes melt out of sheets of ice, creating a very unstable situation.

“The water’s cold and the ice is crappy,” Klawitter said. “Stay off it.”