Possible human remains found after boxcar fire

TRAPPER CREEK — A railroad boxcar burned last week and Alaska State Troopers say they found what might be human remains inside.

According to an AST press statement, a local resident reported the fire at 2:35 p.m., Nov. 22 near an airstrip off of Petersville Road.

“The fire was outside the fire service area, so no fire personnel responded initially. Troopers arrived on scene at approximately (3:10 p.m.) and conducted a check of the boxcar and surroundings. The structure was still partially on fire at the time,” according to the report.

Troopers went back at noon the next day to continue the investigation with help from Trapper Creek medics. The car was mostly ashes, troopers say, because the fire burned so hot. But with help from medics, troopers “located what could possibly be human remains in the ashes.”

Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters described the boxcar as metal and not attached to rails or a train.

“The occupant has converted it and lived in it for a long time, longer than any of the local troopers can remember,” she wrote in an email.

Peters wrote that, while the fire kept troopers out of the boxcar that first day, they continued investigating trying to find its occupant.

“They canvassed the area looking for the owner, talked to neighbors and family about when the owner was last seen and where the owner may be. The owner often leaves the area for weeks/months,” she wrote.

Trooper say they’ve talked to the boxcar occupant’s next of kin, but aren’t identifying him until they’ve got confirmation from the medical examiner’s office on what exactly they found in the ashes.

“The cause and origin of the fire has not yet been determined,” according to the press release.

Mat-Su Borough Emergency Services Director Dennis Brodigan said that borough policy — and state law, actually — prohibit sending fire trucks to fires outside of fire service areas.

“The exception to that is if it’s called in as a confirmed life safety issue,” Brodigan said. “If there is confirmed someone inside the house.”

In this case, it wasn’t confirmed anyone was inside until after the fire was more or less out.

One more exception is for wildfires.

“When our fire departments do respond out, routinely outside of their area is when the division of forestry calls them out for a wildfire, and that’s to make sure that the wildfire doesn’t grow and then consume their fire service area,” Brodigan said.

Trapper Creek is kind of an anomaly in the borough in that decades ago, residents voted to create a fire service area, then refused to vote in any kind of tax to set up a fire department.

Brodigan said he didn’t think the fire service area, were there a department established there, would have covered the boxcar fire.

“They’ve had several fires in the last 10 years; structure fires that burned the structure to the ground. But there’s been no hue and cry for reinstating the mill levy there,” Brodigan said.

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