Southcentral

New maps from the Kenai Peninsula Borough show the Card Street Fire has grown to approximately 1,500 acres.

The Community Center in Sterling continues to be the hub for relief efforts. Residents are sharing updates, along with food, clothes, phone chargers, everything. I was just opening my laptop to pull up the latest evacuation maps when a man who had just left the fire zone came over.

“My name is Shun Ada Chi. I saw that maybe my house was going to burn down because it’s coming very quickly through the Feuding Lane and Kenai Keys area. The people were screaming, crying, it’s a very horrible situation. My house is okay. But I’m feeling very sorry for people who have lost their house.”

Shun is one of the lucky ones. Crews have been battling the fire in his neighborhood for nearly 24 hours and ten structures have been destroyed. Krista Schooley is volunteering here. She’s already heard of some bad news for one family.

“We had a lady come in who lost everything,” Schooley said. “She was able to save her two dogs. Her husband woke up to the fire being on her house and all he could do was grab the animals and get out. She was dazed, just in shock. And she came in here and we just loved on her.”

This fire has been confirmed as human caused. It started Monday afternoon and quickly grew to more than six hundred acres. Calm winds throughout the night and into Tuesday morning helped slow the fire’s growth. But Forestry spokesperson Terry Anderson says firefighters are concerned about Tuesday night’s forecast.

“The national lightening forecast for dry lightening, which firefighters always go over in the morning, is a forecast from 1-6,” Anderson said. “Usually in Alaska you may see twos or threes or fours for a lightening forecast. The forecast for the Kenai is a six today. That’s about as high as it gets.”

A Hotshot crew was scheduled to arrive on the scene Tuesday night. A Type 2 management team is slated to take over operations Wednesday morning. Another Forestry spokesperson, Andy Alexandrou says more air support will be on the way as well.

“A couple of Black hawks that were ordered up this morning from the National Guard to pitch in with their bucket and water capability as well as a Canadian CL-215 scoop aircraft,” Alexandrou said. “We’ve seen them here in the state in the past.”

Travelers along the Sterling Highway should check with the Department of Transportation’s 511 number for information on closures. The Alaska State Troopers are in the area helping direct traffic as crews focus their attention on the east end of the fire, where it’s just a couple miles from the highway.

A dipnetter’s group is seeking state assistance to repair a sketchy stretch of trail used to access the popular personal use fishery on the Copper River near Chitina. The old section of the Copper River Highway has deteriorated due to past year’s landslides.

President of the Fairbanks based Chitina Dipnetters Association Chuck Derrick recently sent a letter to state legislators, seeking up to $150,000 to fix the former road turned trail.

“That part of the Copper River Highway between O’Brien Creek and Haley Creek is the main ground access to the canyon where you can access the back-eddies and everything where the fishing is best,” he said.

Derrick says if nothing is done, the trail will become useless. He adds that the Dipnetter’s Association has received positive feedback from the State Department of Transportation about fixing the trail. DOT Northern region spokeswoman Meadow Bailey says officials recently surveyed the 6 mile section of trail, which she adds the agency already considers impassable.

“There’s a lot of landslides, there’s a lot of material over the road,” Bailey said. “So we anticipate it would take a couple of weeks to go in and make repairs, but we think we could with about a $100,000-$150,000 investment be able to make that road accessible.”

Bailey says the work is not in the DOT’s budget, but if the legislature were to approved funding it could be scheduled in for the fall of 2016. The Dipnetter’s Association’s Derrick says the 350 member group has pledged to cover 20 percent of the repair cost.

The Card Street Fire near Sterling on the Kenai Peninsula doubled in size overnight. Now at more than 1,200 acres, the fire has destroyed at least six structures. Division of Fire spokesperson Tim Mowry says it’s burning mostly through spruce.

“When something’s burning in spruce like that, it grows quick and by the time our guys got there it was torching and crowning and that’s a fast-moving fire,” he said.

The fire was called in sometime after 1:30 Monday afternoon. Initially, it was a small grass fire, about an acre in size, but in a place that was only accessible by 4-wheeler.

The Kenai River borders the fire to the south, the Sterling Highway to the north and Skilak Lake to the east. Evacuations of several neighborhoods continued through the evening.

Division of Forestry Spokesperson Andy Alexandrou says the fire has expanded south, following wind patterns, since it started. Overnight, it spotted across the Kenai River, but hasn’t jumped. But a shift in the wind, pushing it east toward wetlands late last night helped responders protect residential areas.

“It started north, up by Aspen Lane and Cottonwood Lane areas, adjacent to Feuding lane and has burned to the south and southeast, and a bit to the southwest of its point of origin,” he said.

According to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, seven additional response teams from around the state and outside are expected to arrive today.

Late last night and into the wee hours this morning, community members have been mobilizing independent relief efforts- using social media to coordinate camping space for families to shelters for horses and smaller pets.

At the Sterling Community Center, things were quieting down around nine o’clock Monday night. Rochelle Hanson works there. She says so far, people seem far more concerned with how to help than with the actual fire.

“Everybody’s been coming and signing up horse trailers, boats, heavy equipment, I have a 5th-wheel, I have this, I have that. It’s pretty amazing to see how this little community pulls together,” she said.

The community center was one of two designated places for people evacuated. The other is at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex. Helicopters were being used to try to keep the fire from jumping the Kenai River. Ground crews from the Kenai Peninsula Borough were first to respond.

No injuries due to the fire have been reported.

Update: 6:40 p.m., Monday June 15th:

State fire managers are calling the Card Street Fire in Sterling on the Kenai Peninsula “very concerning.” It is now 150 acres and has consumed at least six structures. It has doubled in size in just a few hours. The evacuation area has been expanded North and South of the Kenai river to include 200 homes.

-Evacuations currently include: Salmon Run Drive to the end of Fisherman’s Road and Fisherman’s Court and Dow Island, all subdivisions off of Feuding Lane to Sterling Hwy and Kenai Keys to the Kenai river.
-Temporary shelters have been set up at the Sterling Community Center (relocated from Sterling elementary) and K-Beach Elementary School. Pets in kennels may come to the shelter. Please bring food and medications for pets as none provided.
-No injuries have been reported

Initial story:

Two wild land fires were reported Monday afternoon on the Kenai Peninsula. The larger one was called in at about 1:30 in the Sterling area. State division of forestry spokesperson Andy Alexandrou said by 3:00 p.m. it had grown to 75 acres and was posing a threat to homes.

“We have retardant aircraft inbound to assist with the suppression action,” he said. “We have a helicopter there that we replaced (for) our Kenai helicopter that went to Willow yesterday. We brought one up from Homer from Maritime Helicopters. It is on the Card Street Fire right now.”

There were no official numbers, but voluntary evacuations are underway as several hundred homes are located in the area. Personnel from the Kenai Peninsula Borough are responding on the ground.

More property crime and the potential for hundreds of new residents in the coming years has the unincorporated area of Nikiski looking for more law enforcement. The area is underserved by the Alaska State Troopers and community members want action.

One of the things that makes Nikiski so attractive to the people who live there is the same thing that makes it attractive for petty criminals: quiet, secluded neighborhoods, no cops and the space to be more or less left alone to do as you please. But that’s not really working for everyone anymore. It really hasn’t been working for a while.

“So it seems to be the same conversation we had back in 2004. And here we are again.”

That’s Ann Krogseng. She runs a construction business with her husband. She says the property crime has gotten so bad that when some gas was siphoned from one of their tanks recently, they didn’t even bother calling it in. And she doesn’t think the multi-billion dollar Alaska LNG Project coming to town will help.

“And we are on the cusp of having a dramatic economic change in our community. And we can either be prepared if it does come or not be prepared. We’ll either be proactive or we’ll be reactive.”

Krogseng was one of more than 100 residents who came to a recent meeting to find out more about a proposed law enforcement service area. Since Nikiski isn’t a city, the services it gets through the Kenai Peninsula Borough like fire response and recreation, are all approved on local ballots and paid for through local taxes. Having that local control is a big selling point, as people aren’t real satisfied with Alaska State Troopers ability to respond to calls from their post in Soldotna, 30 minutes away. But a dedicated police force isn’t the answer for everyone. Local militia members, like Ray Southwell, think they should be able to take care of themselves.

“I’m in the process of developing the Deacons for Defense and have called upon militia members in our community to join our efforts to expose the drug dealers and disrupt their money-making schemes that destroys communities.”

Most residents do point to drug use as the main culprit behind all the property theft. It’s those layers of related crimes that make people think a permanent police presence is the best answer. But it will be up the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly to decide if the question of creating a new law enforcement service area will go on the ballot this fall. If it does, the final decision will be up to the residents of Nikiski.

 

Sunday afternoon, a wildfire in the Willow area prompted evacuation of 10 homes and the closure of the Parks Highway.

According to Tim Mowry, spokesman for the Division of Forestry, the fire was called in shortly after 1:00 p.m. At that time, it was estimated to be two acres in size. By 4:00 pm, it had grown to over 200 acres. The fire is being driven to the south by wind.

Shortly after 3:00 pm, Mat-Su Borough Emergency Manager Casey Cook confirmed that the Parks Highway is closed between Mile 74 and Willow Fishhook Road, and no traffic is passing through the area.

Officials are advising that people avoid the area of the fire.

As of 3:30, 10 homes were confirmed evacuated, and evacuation in the Sharen Road subdivision was beginning.