KYUK - Bethel

Michaela Mike is moving into another apartment at the Association of Village Council Presidents Regional Housing Authority apartment complex in Bethel. Her old one is cordoned off with crime scene tape. Next to it is the burned wreckage of her neighbors’ apartments.

On Aug. 12, a fire tore through the apartment complex, killing three people and injuring six others. It destroyed two units completely and damaged more, Mike’s included.

Residents like Mike that witnessed the fire have criticized how police, firefighters, and other city workers responded.

“It could have been better. When I came out, they were just standing around,” she said.

People who witnessed the response question if the deaths could have been prevented. Six of these witnesses spoke to KYUK, giving consistent accounts of how the response played out. KYUK has chosen to protect the identities of a person who survived the fire and a minor who witnessed the fire.

The witnesses said that firefighters arrived without enough water or a ladder to reach the second floor, where the fire’s victims slept. Tenants largely said that they were not evacuated from their apartments, and they said that emergency responders restrained a resident from attempting to rescue his family members who died in the fire.

According to a city emergency dispatch log, a community service officer called in the fire to the city dispatch at 4:13 a.m. Two police cars and one fire truck arrived just a few minutes later. But interviews, photos, video and the dispatch log all point to delays and difficulties getting water onto the fire and attempting to rescue people trapped inside.

The fire began in the entryway of the building and took 20 minutes to reach the second floor, trapping nine people in two units. Within that 20 minute span, all but three of them jumped out second-story windows to escape, according to eyewitnesses and court documents. The three who remained inside on the second floor died.

They were Sophie Engebreth, age 68, and her adopted teenage granddaughters: Brianna Engebreth, age 13, and Melissa Engebreth, age 15.

Witnesses question if firefighters had enough water 

The fire department showed up either with very little water to fight the fire or with no water at all, the six witnesses who spoke with KYUK said.

Mike recalled seeing a fire hose with no water coming out of it. Another resident, Tanya Leopold, said that she saw plenty of first responders when she first evacuated her apartment, but they didn’t seem to be trying to suppress the flames or evacuate people.

“There was a fire truck, and it had all its equipment to turn off a fire, but they didn’t have a ladder on there. There was at least three, four cop cars there already,” Leopold said. “So it was like, every minute or so, there is another cop car. The cops multiplied, and they just stood there.”

Bethel Police did not respond to KYUK’s multiple calls and emails asking for comment.

Leopold said that that shortly after the fire engine arrived, it ran out of water.

“They came very unprepared. They should have had their gear ready, their water ready, any fire extinguishers, at least axes. They could have done something for those ladies,” Leopold said.

Leopold and Mike’s testimonies are corroborated by photo and video evidence obtained by KYUK and by interviews with city officials. According to photos and videos, about 20 minutes after the fire was first reported, no water had been deployed to fight it.

Bethel Public Works Director Bill Arnold oversees sending water trucks to fire scenes. He said that he was first contacted at about 5 a.m., more than 45 minutes after the fire started. He said that the first city water truck arrived on scene 15 minutes later at 5:15 a.m., more than an hour after the fire started.

The dispatch log shows that the first fire engine on the scene reported being out of water a few minutes after that, at 5:19 a.m., but it’s not clear if it’s referring to the fire engine itself or the newly arrived water truck. Then at 5:22 a.m., a fire truck hooked up to a nearby fire hydrant.

The Bethel Fire Department said that it could not respond to any of KYUK’s questions about its response to the fire, so it’s not clear why it took an hour to connect to a hydrant. But Bethel City Manager Pete Williams suggested that it could be because sometimes in the Bethel Heights Subdivision, connecting to a fire hydrant shuts off water to other houses.

Tenants were trapped on the second floor

Witnesses said that all emergency response vehicles were parked in front of the building, but the fire victims on the second floor would have been better reached from the back.

“They could have used those [fire engine] ladders. They could have gone behind the building where Sophie and the girls were, but there was no fire truck back there,” Mike said.

Several other witnesses corroborated her story. One of Sophie’s sons, Richard Engebreth, posted on Facebook that the fire department first arrived without a ladder. Though a second fire truck did arrive with a ladder later, he said that firefighters did not use it to try to help people escape. Engebreth also wrote that his three family members who died were calling for help from the second-story back windows.

Witnesses Leopold and Mike said that a crowd had gathered and were asking firefighters to step in.

“Then there’s a whole bunch of other people, and there’s these girls. They were yelling, telling them to do their job to save them,” Mike said.

At one point, the women said that police handcuffed Engebreth to keep him from trying to enter the building to save his mother, who died.

“I know he was really hollering and crying for his mom. I don’t see why they handcuffed him. He was just crying and wanting his mom just like anybody else would,” Leopold said.

The dispatch notes show that at 4:48 a.m., about half an hour after the fire started, the officers called the Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center and asked if they had cells available for several people.

According to dispatch notes and testimony from tenants, when police arrived on scene, they spent more time controlling the crowd and handcuffing people than they did evacuating residents.

Eventually, witnesses said that water began flowing freely to the fire, and a ladder moved to the back of the building. But by then, it was too late. The witnesses speculate that if firefighters had entered the building or used a ladder earlier, the victims’ lives may have been spared.

City struggling with staffing

The city has been struggling with staffing issues.

A firefighter told KYUK in July that during the pandemic the fire department had lost 22 of its 25 of its volunteers. However, Bethel Fire Chief Daron Solesbee also told KYUK that he had started to regain some in recent months.

Earlier in the summer, the Bethel Public Works Department reported that it was critically understaffed for water truck drivers and that they were “mentally and physically tired.”

Apartment complex criticized

Tenants also criticized the apartment complex. Residents told officers there were no sprinklers or alarms inside. Tenant Galen Frank told KYUK that he only woke up because of the smell of smoke.

AVCP RHA operates the building. President and CEO Mark Charlie said that he could not answer any of KYUK’s questions about the sprinkler systems, the alarm systems, or anything else related to the fire. However, he did tell KYUK that the apartments have fire extinguishers.

Lawsuits may follow

Two weeks after the fire, the apartment building is a grim sight. The two second-story apartments that were total losses have burned and collapsed. The remaining walls and floor are charred black. Their windows are gone.

In one of those ruined apartments lived the three people who died, with a relative who escaped by jumping out the window. In the other, there lived five who also escaped through the window.

The survivors of both apartments have retained lawyers. Lawyer Myron Angstman said that he represents the Engebreth family, and that they are exploring their legal options. Another lawyer, Jim Valcarce, did not answer KYUK’s calls or emails, but one of his clients, a survivor, told KYUK that they plan to sue the City of Bethel, AVCP RHA, and any other responding entities.

Both the fall chum salmon and the coho salmon runs on the Yukon River remain too low to open subsistence harvest. Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists do not expect either to reach their goals for fish reaching their spawning grounds.

An estimated three quarters of the fall chum salmon run is past the lower river. As of Aug. 21, the state-run sonar at Pilot Station counted 194,000 fall chum. That’s compared to a historical medium of 486,000 fall chum by that date.

The fall chum that have returned are slightly older than the historical average and with slightly fewer females than the historical average. The fish are also smaller, measuring 26 millimeters less than their historical average length.

The Yukon River coho salmon run is also far below its average run size but coming in higher numbers than last year’s record low. The Pilot Station sonar has counted 43,000 coho, compared to a historical average of 73,000 by this time.

Like the fall chum, the coho are also returning smaller. The coho are averaging 31 millimeters less than their historical average length. The sampled coho length averaged 544 millimeters, compared to a historical average of 575 millimeters.

At Russian Mission, state biologists have attached radio tags to over 118 coho as of Aug. 19. ADF&G asks anyone catching a coho carrying a tag to call the department at 907-459-7274.

Fishing for fall chum and coho salmon remains closed on the Yukon River. Selective gear types remain allowed, and fall chum must be returned to the water alive. Four-inch mesh gillnets are also allowed.

Yukon River state fishery manager Christy Gleason says mesh size restrictions are unlikely to lift until early October.

Correction: This story originally said that both fall chum and coho caught in selective gear must be returned to the water alive. That is incorrect. Coho can be retained along with non-salmon. Only fall chum must be returned to the water alive. Also this story originally said that four-inch mesh set nets are allowed on the Yukon River. That has been corrected to say that four-inch mesh gillnets are allowed.

Tyler Bartlett and his copilot were just three miles from the Bethel airport when he felt his Cessna 172 begin to sputter. He was coming from McGrath in a private plane to accrue hours for his commercial license, and he estimated the flight would take about two hours. Bartlett loaded up with three and-a-half hours worth of fuel for the flight.

But as he approached Bethel, he was running on empty.

“Lost a lot of the power. Had a little bit, but that wasn’t really helping keep us up, so we’re slowly going down,” Bartlett said. “First thing to do, find a place to land.”

Bartlett quickly realized he wasn’t going to make it to the airport and told air traffic control that he had to make an emergency landing. At first he aimed for the road leading out to the dump, but a quick burst of power gave him hope he might be able to make it to the runway after all. A few seconds later it became clear he didn’t have enough, and he chose to land on Ridgecrest Drive instead.

“I was able to avoid traffic, saw a car pass and it was clear ahead, so I was like, alright, put it between these power lines,” Bartlett said. “Touched down basically right in front of Fili’s.”

Bartlett managed to maneuver the plane past any power lines on the way down, and the slow Sunday traffic meant that there were few cars on the road.

Bartlett, who is 20 years old, grew up in Anchorage and has been living in Bethel for about a year and a half. His dad is also a bush pilot, and his mother is the office manager for Fox Air, a local airline charter service. Bartlett isn’t employed by the company.

Bartlett got his private license in the spring of 2020 and said he’s never had to make an emergency landing before. Still, Bartlett said he didn’t panic.

“Just a bit of a shock to lose power, but I knew I had the road to land on,” Bartlett said.

His mother, Jonna Bartlett, trusts her son’s abilities and is glad he’s safe.

“It was definitely one of those things moms don’t want to hear about, but at least he’s safe,” Jonna Bartlett said. “Missed the signs, missed any cars, just like a crazy, crazy day.”

Police arrived to help manage traffic. Bartlett and his father towed the plane to the airport with a motorcade of police and state vehicles.

No tickets or citations were issued for the emergency landing.

In June, the largest tundra fire the region has ever seen ripped through the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Life is now going back to normal for residents who live near the site of the fire, but people should expect more frequent tundra fires in coming years as the climate continues to change.

Elder Sophie Beans stands in her wooden house near the banks of the Andreafsky River. It’s lush and green outside, but just a few miles away the earth is scorched.

“See right here is our camp, and it burned,” Beans said, gesturing to the wall and a vintage photo of her cabin, nestled into a spruce grove about five miles upriver from her main home.

Those spruce trees burned down and the surrounding tundra is black after a massive fire ripped through about two months ago. At 166,587 acres, the East Fork Fire was the largest tundra fire the region has ever seen.

Climate scientist Rick Thoman said that fires like this one were once rare. Now, he said, they are likely to become far more common as the earth continues to warm.

“The idea that there’s going to be more fire on the tundra, I think, is a done deal. After decades of warmer springs and summers there’s just more to burn,” he said. “There’s going to be more land burned. That’s a sure thing.”

Thoman said that this summer has seen the most acreage burned in the Y-K Delta region. And most of the region’s wildfires have occurred in the past seven years.

The cause of most of the fires has been lightning. And lightning has become much more common in the Y-K Delta over recent years. Thoman said that’s because more heat emanating from a warmer Bering Sea causes more moisture, which in turn causes more frequent thunderstorms. When the lightning from those storms strikes the tundra, which is now usually drier from less snowmelt and more heat, fire can spread fast and far.

Elders along the Yukon River also report thicker and denser vegetation over recent years, which can serve as fuel for fires. Like the spruce trees that surrounded Beans’ cabin.

Beans said that the fire destroyed her favorite blackberry patch nearby.

The other leftover signs of the fire in St. Mary’s are the torn up tundra trenches encircling the city, scorched earth and leftover fire retardant.

Besides that, life has largely gone back to normal in St. Mary’s. The vulnerable residents who evacuated to Bethel or Anchorage have all returned and the nearly 200 firefighters have long gone home.

All charges have been dropped against a man who was charged earlier this week in an Aug. 12 fire that killed three at an apartment complex in Bethel.

Adam Andrew had been charged with three counts of murder in the second degree and one count of arson, along with seven more felonies and six misdemeanors.

According to court documents, Bethel Police Department Investigator Skyler Smith had relied on the testimony of just one fifteen-year-old eyewitness who said he saw Andrew start the fire.

Prosecutor Chris Knowles would not say whether the fire was still being investigated as arson or whether they were looking at other causes. He did say there is still an active investigation and that Bethel Police Department is still investigating all leads.

The fire started last Friday at around 4 a.m. at Bethel’s Association of Village Council Presidents Regional Housing Authority townhouses.

Family members identified the people who died as Elder Sophie Engebreth, 15-year-old Melissa Engebreth and 13-year-old Brianna Engebreth. Melissa and Brianna were Sophie’s granddaughters by birth and daughters by adoption.

Five more people were injured. Neighbors said that no sprinklers or fire alarms went off during the fire.

For the first time ever, state fishery managers are closing the Kuskokwim River and nearly all its tributaries to coho fishing to conserve the species’ low returns. Anticipated federal action could still allow for some subsistence openings in the lower river.

For now, the month-long closure takes effect at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 17. At that time, subsistence fishermen will no longer be allowed to fish with gillnets, fish wheels, beach seines, or dipnets on the Kuskokwim River, from the mouth upstream to the headwaters.

Nearly all Kuskokwim River tributaries will also close to this gear, except for the Gweek, Johnson, Kialiq, Tagayarak, and Eenayarak Rivers, which will remain open 100 yards upstream from their confluence with the Kuskokwim.

Subsistence fishing with this gear will continue to be allowed in non-flowing waters, including lakes, ponds, backwaters, and oxbow lakes of the Kuskokwim River drainage, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Hook and line fishing will continue to be allowed throughout the drainage, but fishermen are not allowed to target coho and must return any coho back to the water alive.

The closures would mark the first time managers have closed the river to conserve coho salmon returns. State data indicates that the run is the second-lowest in the past decade and that the species is not expected to meet the state’s escapement goals for coho reaching the spawning grounds.

“As of Aug. 14, the Bethel test fishery cumulative CPUE for coho salmon was 746 (2008–2021 average is 2,112), and the total estimated passage past the sonar was 104,346 coho salmon,” Fish and Game wrote in its announcement.

However, federal managers could override the state’s actions in the lower river, from the mouth upstream to Aniak. These waters flow through federal land. Last week, Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge Manager Boyd Blihovde said that he planned to declare federal management of the coho run in these waters if returns remained low. Blihovde said that he would seek to allow some fishing opportunities for coho. The announcement is expected later this week.

The federal government has a restraining order against the state that prevents the state from issuing conflicting management orders.

News of the low coho run comes as a worrisome blow to people along the river. While other runs have been tightly restricted in recent years, fishermen could rely on an open river to catch coho at the end of the summer. Last month, many fishermen had said that they were planning to target coho after a summer of limited fishing openings.