Pike Ave. fire rekindles road debate

WASILLA — The state of Pike Avenue didn’t hamper efforts to fight a house fire there.

Not this time, anyway.

“What we have encountered previously is if it’s iced or there’s been significant snowfall then we would not have been able to get quite a number of those trucks in there we would have had to lay hose from out at Bear Street all the way in and that would have taken a lot more time and probably could not have been able to save that one travel trailer that we were able to save,” said Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele.

Pike Avenue, like many roads in Mat-Su, doesn’t meet borough standards because it is too steep and too narrow. It’s more like what one would refer to as a “pioneer road.” But unlike most other pioneer roads, Pike is right in the heart of what is referred to as the “core” area — the region including Palmer and Wasilla with the densest development in the Mat-Su Borough.

Steele said there are other roads like that in the Valley, but not many. Among this group of roads, this one sticks out like a sore thumb for its history as problematic.

“This is probably the fifth or sixth fire that we’ve had down in there that I can recall,” Steele said.

During the last fire, in January, road conditions definitely hampered borough response. Crews had to lay 1,000 feet of hose deliver water from nearby Bear Street. That takes time but also costs the firefighting effort water. Each foot of hose equals a gallon of water that is used to fill the hose rather than fight the fire, Steele said.

Mike Blodgett lives in the area and has been complaining about the road problems for decades. He said he thinks the neighborhood is neglected because residents there don’t have a lot of clout.

“Those people ain’t got a lot of money. I used to live on that street and I didn’t have a lot of money,” Blodgett said. “There’s no multi-million dollar homes back there so (the borough) don’t give a damn.”

Borough officials say it’s more complicated than that. Terry Dolan, director of the borough’s Department of Public works said that at least one road there runs across public and private property. Some people have built structures that encroach on the roads and some have even taken action to completely block road access.

“The borough doesn’t have authority to go on private property and remove obstructions,” Dolan said.

A complaint filed with the borough on Nov. 18 details the blocking of King Salmon Drive, which — if a suspect bridge across a creek was deemed safe to trucks — could provide an alternative access for fire trucks if Pike Avenue was too icy. Photos attached to the complaint show a pile of rocks blocking the road.

The complaint quotes the resident who put the rocks there as saying she’s worried about insurance liability as people drive across the private section of the road, that people drive on it too fast and that they create potholes that cause problems.

Attached to the complaint is an e-mail to borough management from Andy Dean, a right-of-way coordinator with the borough who was looking into the matter.

Dean refers to the road as a “trespass road” and confirms that it crosses private property. He said that he has talked to the landowner there who seemed agreeable to re-doing the plat for the land — a plat is a map showing where property lines are — and selling the problematic patch of land under the road.

Regardless of any re-plat, Pike Avenue still can’t be maintained by the borough because it doesn’t comply with borough code for roads. Gary Hessmer sits on the Road Service Area board that oversees road maintenance and light construction for the area.

“We do not maintain that road because the road is not up to borough standards,” Hessmer said. “We are prohibited from maintaining roads even though the property owners in there pay a mill rate and actually pay a tax it’s not provided because of the inherent liability or risk in trying to maintain substandard roads.”

He said the borough has looked into solutions and talked about seeking out funding to fix it.

“To date, nothing’s materialized in that regard,” he said.

Steele said that the fire on Tuesday was reported at 7:07 a.m. He said that he was the third person on scene and by the time he arrived the roof of the home was on the ground. That doesn’t mean that the fire was necessarily a fast-moving one, though. The first report about it came from a neighbor and it’s unclear how long it had been burning before one of the two people inside noticed it.

“One of his comments was that they woke up, they smelled smoke and he went to the front door and opened the front door and all that he was faced with was just flames so they escaped through the backdoor,” Steele said.

Steele said the two people inside at the time made it out OK. In addition to the home, three vehicles and a travel trailer burned. A second travel trailer was partially damaged but mostly saved. The man who had been living in that second trailer had left the property earlier in the day.

The lack of snow this winter actually played a role in the fire. In addition to spreading to the vehicles and the travel trailer the fire burned nearby brush and firefighters summoned help from the Alaska Division of Forestry. To have wildland firefighters on a scene this late in the year is almost unheard of but has been slightly more common in recent years.

Forestry’s Mat-Su Area Fire Management Officer Norm McDonald said that he’s keeping a crew on for now.

“We’re kind of playing it by ear. It’s going to be weather dependent,” McDonald said. “Until we get some actual snow we’ll keep a short staff to help where we can.”

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