destroying a workshop\/garage on Moraine Way<\/a>, off the back loop of Mendenhall Loop Road.<\/p>\nOn Wednesday, Cameron \u201cMike\u201d Fleming was still trying to inventory more than $100,000 in losses, teetering between disbelief and sadness as he gestures toward his gutted workshop, which had contained 20 years\u2019 worth of woodworking, machining and welding gear.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I\u2019ve collected is gone,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s insured, but \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Fleming points to a fishing pole that survived, a gift from a friend nearly 10 years ago. On a blackened wall there used to a hang a T-shirt that belong to his wife\u2019s father, that commemorated his first solo flight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t valuable, but it was a memory,\u201d he said. \u201cA new shop won\u2019t have these memories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fleming said his younger dog gave the alarm, waking him up with a \u201cvicious\u201d bark.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought someone was breaking in,\u201d he said. \u201cI looked at the window and saw flames and freaked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fleming\u2019s wife, Donna, ran to move a car out of the carport, and they were able to drag a quad out of harm\u2019s way. In a stroke of luck, Fleming had moved his boat outside a few days earlier.<\/p>\n
He tried to beat back the flames with two fire extinguishers, noting ruefully that he should have invested in \u201cgood-quality 20-pounders.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fire seemed to have started in a plastic storage shed that had contained a pressure washer, a table saw and chop saw, as well as some tarps, he said. When Fleming got to the shed, it literally wasn\u2019t there any more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was that fast,\u201d he said of the fire, which he called a homeowner\u2019s biggest nightmare.<\/p>\n
An insurance investigator is scheduled to come out Thursday to examine the site of the fire, Fleming said. He added that he was having a hard time believing it was arson, saying, \u201cI just can\u2019t imagine someone wanting to do this. It\u2019s just ugly; it\u2019s just ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two blazes set Tuesday<\/strong><\/p>\nCCFR firefighters were dispatched to the first fire of two fires Tuesday, off Steep Place in the Mendenhall Valley at about 2:32 p.m., said Assistant Fire Chief Ed Quinto.<\/p>\n
The original call came in as an open burn, Quinto said. When fire personnel arrived, they found a fire in the backyard of a home that had burned a large section of wooden fence, a wooden gazebo and vegetation before starting to spread to the house. A pile of wood up against the house was also on fire. The fire was quickly extinguished, with property damage estimated at approximately $6,000.<\/p>\n
This fire is being investigated as an intentional fire, not an open burn, Jager said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no indication someone intended to burn the house,\u201d he said. \u201cWe believe it started along the backyard fence, it burned 50 feet of fence. On the other side of the fence, there were a lot of dead leaves and dried grass, which is typical to find in the springtime. The fire traveled up through that and the wood gazebo was in the middle of that. Once that got going, there was enough heat coming off the gazebo, which was 10 feet from the house, that it ignited stacked lumber and Trex decking material that was stacked against the side of the house. It was a series of combustible items within close proximity to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also on Tuesday at approximately 4:22 p.m., firefighters responded to the Savviko ball fields on Douglas, for a bench fire in a dugout, Jager said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fire was relatively small and was quickly extinguished,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This also was ruled as intentionally set because there was no reason found for the fire to have started there, Jager said.<\/p>\n
To have four fires in four days \u2014 including a fire Saturday night on Seward Street that destroyed a local photographer\u2019s business <\/a>\u2014 is unusual, the fire marshal said. The Seward Street fire may have been caused by someone flicking a cigarette butt into a narrow alleyway adjacent to the shop.<\/p>\n\u201cIn that short of a time frame, that is a concern,\u201d Jager said of the string of fires.<\/p>\n
Luckily, he added, no one has been injured, but there has been a substantial amount of property damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have our share if intentional fires \u2014 it\u2019s been a year, a year and a half since we\u2019ve had this many intentional fires at once,\u201d Jager said. \u201cWe don\u2019t really know the motive, whether it\u2019s juveniles or \u2014 we have no clue, so that makes it difficult to find a common thread, if there is one.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Liz Kellar at 523-2246 or liz.kellar@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four fires in the span of four days \u2014 three of which were apparently intentionally set \u2014 have Capital City Fire\/Rescue Marshal Dan Jager understandably concerned. But Jager said Wednesday that the rash of blazes do not appear to be connected. Of the three that he has ruled arson, two were in the Mendenhall Valley […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-28954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28954"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}