By Tom Morphet
Alaska State Troopers will send to a state crime lab charred sections
of a Porcupine Road house trailer that was destroyed by fire about 3 a.m. April 29.
State trooper Josh Bentz characterized the fire as suspicious, but the
blaze did not reach the state’s criteria for sending a fire marshal here to
investigate it.
The fire marshall travels to investigate only in cases involving either
human injury, $500,000 or more in damage, or great community impact, a state spokesman
said this week.
"We’re still going to investigate it through the mail. If
they can’t come to us, we’ll go to them," trooper Bentz said.
Owner Ray Briggs of Haines, an equipment operator who was working on
the North Slope when the blaze occurred, said he couldn’t make sense of how it
started. He’d left the refrigerator on, but had shut off everything else –
including fuel lines to a new Toyo stove – when he’d locked up after his last
visit home nine weeks ago.
He’s been leaving the place empty while away working the past two
years, he said. "I’ve done this every time. I had everything shut off because I
knew I wasn’t going to be home."
Further, Briggs told troopers a padlock on a trailer van containing
thousands of dollars of equipment was removed, but items inside were left in place,
including power tools, a chainsaw and snowshoes.
Briggs wasn’t as sure of the fate of 20 silver dollars and a large
jar of quarters inside the building at the time of the fire. They didn’t show up
during a cursory sift through the ashes Saturday.
Briggs, who recently took over Buster Benson’s sawmill, pegged his
loss at about $50,000. "It was everything a person has in a house, including
photos."
Briggs’ mother-in-law, Barbara Woods, whose house sits about 500
feet from the trailer, called the fire department when she and her husband were awakened
by an explosion. "Boom. We sat straight up. The fire was already about 30 feet up in
the air."
The Klehini Valley Fire Department arrived in about 30 minutes and was
able to prevent the fire from spreading to a motorhome and other equipment near the
trailer. "We just thanked God there wasn’t anyone over there." Woods was
able to salvage a photo album and her grandaughter’s baby book from inside the
building.
Next-door neighbor and brother-in-law Wes Wallers lives about 100 feet
from the trailer, but said he slept through the explosion that woke Woods. A houseguest,
who was up watching television at the time of the fire, awoke Wallers on leaving the house
to see what was going on. "We’re all pretty flabbergasted about this,"
Wallers said.
Briggs and Wallers say items – including gasoline – are
stolen from time to time in the remote neighborhood where the snowplows stop on Porcupine
Road, but they’ve never suffered vandalism or other more serious problems from
passersby.
The fire burned through the floor only in the trailer’s living
room, leading some firefighters to believe the blaze may have started there, but Briggs
said he doubted that because the only items in that room were a television and an easy
chair. The Toyo stove and a woodstove were in an adjacent room.
A brand-new range and a washing machine were on an enclosed porch
attached to the trailer. The porch and appliances also were destroyed.
The trailer was one purchased from Klukwan, Inc. and was manufactured
in 1981. Briggs put it on the property himself about five years ago. Although some
speculation surrounded suspect aluminum wiring blamed for trailer fires, Woods said wiring
in the trailer, identical to a trailer she owns, was copper.
Briggs said the home was not insured. He said he planned to build a new
place on property he owns at 25 Mile.
