Pair of fires keep crews busy

WASILLA — In addition to the chaos caused by Wednesday’s snowfall, firefighters also were kept hopping with two structure fires on opposite sides of the Mat-Su Borough’s core area.

The first fire was on Pintail Circle near the intersection of Seldon and Schrock roads.

Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele said on scene that the fire was knocked down in about 10 minutes.

Otto Feather, the Mat-Su Borough’s deputy director of Emergency Services for fire response, said Thursday that with such a quick knockdown, the building wasn’t destroyed.

“It looks as though the structure is very much salvageable,” he said.

Would he call that, in the firefighter’s parlance, a “good save?”

“That was a great save,” he said about the response.

Responders from the West Lakes and Houston fire department helped with that one, Feather said.

Steele said that one person inside the house when the fire began was transported to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center in Palmer for treatment of smoke inhalation.

Both Steele and Feather said the cause and origin of the blaze are under investigation.

“We were doing overhaul on that when the call went out for the fire in Palmer,” Feather said.

That fire was in a barn on Palmer-Fishhook Road. Photos taken at the scene and provided to the Frontiersman by a family member of the barn’s owner show huge flames and multi-colored smoke rising from the structure. Damage to the barn was more severe than to that home on Pintail.

“The barn fire is a complete loss and it’s a bit of landmark. It was a beautiful old barn. I don’t know the exact age of it, but it had a stone foundation and it is truly a loss of a landmark that most locals would recognize,” Feather said.

He said that on that fire, Central Mat-Su had help from the Sutton and Palmer fire departments.

“I think we had very good response from all of our crews getting into the stations and getting to the fires,” Feather said.

He said he personally responded to both fires and was far from alone. Multiple firefighters worked to both scenes. On the ambulance and rescue side of emergency services, responders went to multiple calls Wednesday after a snowstorm and slick conditions snarled traffic.

“Our crews were very heavily tasked with accidents and rescue calls,” he said. “To add two structure fires made for a very busy day.”

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