The Butte fights back

BUTTE -- Borough emergency services personnel are pitching in to reduce lawlessness on Mat-Su Borough land in the Butte's Knik River and Jim Creek areas, and it appears they may soon be getting some additional help.

Butte Fire Department staff began patrols of the Jim Creek and Knik River areas May 2 and 3, a move that borough staff said was essential because of the high fire danger, continued low humidity and dry conditions of the Mat-Su Valley. During that initial patrol, Butte Fire Chief Charles Von Gunten said he and a crew of four went out and asked several groups who had stacked pallets to create bonfires to reduce the size of their fires to a normal campfire. He said through the night, some of the groups built the fires back up and his crew extinguished several of the fires. His crew also spotted an abandoned vehicle that appeared to have been hot-wired and may have been a candidate for burning. They reported the vehicle to troopers, Von Gunten said.

"We made the rounds down the river and up to Jim Creek," Von Gunten said.

The next weekend, that of the 9th and 10th, Von Gunten said his crew didn't go out -- the windy, rainy weather made it unlikely people would be out camping in the area, he said. But the crew of volunteers are gearing up for the Memorial Day weekend, he said.

Von Gunten said he's using leftover training and community service funds to help pay for his crew to patrol the area. It's a task he said his crew sees benefit in.

"We're doing it as a community service because, if we can prevent a big fire, that saves us from having to fight one," Von Gunten said. "It works to our benefit, too, to try and prevent anything from happening."

Many on his crew of about 25 have agreed to take monthly shifts and patrol the area from the evening to the early morning each weekend to try and stem illegal activity in the Butte and Jim Creek areas.

"We'll do it, probably on the weekends that have real fire danger," Von Gunten said. "The others, we may not."

Von Gunten said he and other firefighters are hopeful their patrols pay off in other ways than simply preventing fire danger.

"We hope that, basically after a couple weeks, people will get the message that you can't just come out and party out there, because somebody's looking over your shoulder," Von Gunten said.

That doesn't mean the firefighters are advocating vigilante justice or putting themselves in harm's way. The first weekend they were out there, he said, his crew came across a group that refused to cooperate when firefighters asked them to extinguish their burn. The crew radioed for assistance from Alaska State Troopers, and officers responded.

"If we do have that kind of problem -- if they're just not going to listen, we back off and call the troopers," Von Gunten said.

Although Von Gunten said his crew is committed to helping the community out during this fire season, funding for next year is still up in the air.

"Next year we'll just play it by ear," Von Gunten said. "If it works real good this year, we might patrol early in the year. Hopefully word will get around … we'll probably do it again just as a public service."

Borough Manager John Duffy said the Mat-Su Borough Assembly will, on Tuesday, review a $994,000 appropriation obtained by Sen. Ted Stevens for Spruce Bark Beetle kill remediation that may be distributed among all the borough's fire service areas. The funding, Duffy said, would allow the patrol program to be continued for two years in the Butte fire service area.

"It seems to be working out well," said borough Emergency Services director Jack Krill. "They're having a pretty good effect in helping the community. What I've heard through comments from people out there is that they seem to be very happy about it."

Krill said the borough is presently working with troopers to see if space can be made available at the Butte fire station to allow a trooper to use the area as a base of operations.

Dennis Casanovas, captain of the Palmer post of the Alaska State Troopers, said he hasn't received a proposal from the Mat-Su Borough, but spoke with the Butte Community Council recently about what he called a mini-substation.

If an office, lavatory and telephone were made available, he said, troopers may be able to use the facility to fill out reports and make telephone calls without the buzz of activity generally found at the trooper post. The benefit to the Butte community, Casanovas said, is that, if a trooper were using that office, they would be in the area and able to respond to calls requesting a response to the area. Casanovas said while troopers would be encouraged to use the office, it would not have a mandatory staffing schedule.

"It would be available for troopers to utilize if they saw a need," Casanovas said.

Duffy said the borough is working to iron out the details of the arrangement, but is committed to finding a workable office space. Currently, he said, borough staff are looking at providing space at the Butte fire station for as little overhead cost as possible.

"If we can do this without charging them, that's what we'll do," Duffy said.