A house fire that killed a Yakutat man over the weekend was likely the result of unattended cooking, according to police in the Southeast Alaska community.
Robert Beasley, the Yakutat Police Department's interim chief, identified the deceased as 36-year-old Eric Anderstrom. Police first received word of the blaze, in the Monti Bay Heights area, around 6 a.m. Saturday.
"Flames were present, coming out of the kitchen window," Beasley said Tuesday. "The kitchen was fully engulfed, and the flames spread up through the attic area."
Five Yakutat firefighters, as well as a sport fisherman visiting from San Francisco who saw the fire when he woke up, responded and fought the fire for at least 20 minutes.
Anderstrom's body was found on the floor of the living room, near a couch. Although smoke alarms in the home were sounding when police arrived, Beasley said investigators believe Anderstrom died in his sleep of smoke inhalation.
An investigation by Yakutat police and the State Fire Marshal's office traced the source of the fire.
"It's apparent that the fire started in the kitchen — the origin appears to have been some cooking," Beasley said. "There was a frying pan that was on the stove, that was under the ceiling debris that had fallen on it."
It wasn't immediately clear after the fire whether the home was a total loss. Although flames didn't burn into the rest of the residence beyond the kitchen, Beasley said the gutted attic suffered extensive fire damage.
"The roof trusses for the full length of the house have been burnt and are unusable; the house is unstable," Beasley said.
Beasley said he has known both Anderstrom and his family "since he was a little boy." Anderstrom's sister and her family were in Juneau at the time of the fire, he said.
Anderstrom's body is being sent to the State Medical Examiner office in Anchorage, where an autopsy will determine his cause of death.