By Jasz Garrett
Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Capital City Fire Rescue was on the scene of a structure fire early Thursday morning on Glacier Highway. CCFR Assistant Chief Sam Russell said all residents and pets were out of the building with no injuries reported. He added that the cause of the fire is still under investigation as of Thursday afternoon.
“We responded to about 15 mile for a report of a structure fire. When we arrived, we found that the fire was mostly on the exterior on the front,” Russell said. “All the occupants had evacuated without incidents, including the dogs. We put the fire out and went home. It was complicated a little bit by slippery road conditions and weather conditions.”
Red Cross was working with the residents to find shelter early Thursday morning. Russell said he is uncertain about the amount of damage caused to the structure at this time.
Due to the icy condition and steepness of the driveway, the crews had to pull the firehose uphill to the fire.
“Normally, we would have been able to pull up to the house but because of the slippery road conditions, we weren’t able to navigate the driveway with the fire engine,” Russell said.”Just meant that we had to spend an extra minute or so pulling the hose up the hill rather than pulling it directly off the engine and to the fire. So, it added maybe two minutes to the response time, which is relatively insignificant for this fire.”
Russell would like to remind the public to check that their smoke detectors are working. Both the smoke detectors and the dogs were able to alert the residents early on about the fire.
