Alaska News

Raging fire at 38-unit Anchorage apartment complex leaves residents homeless

Anchorage firefighters extinguished a stubborn three-alarm fire that engulfed much of a 38-unit apartment building Thursday and displaced a crowd of people, who stood outside the yellow police tape with neighbors and watched their homes burn.

The fire at 221 Meyer Street, the Glynwood Manor at the end of Peterkin Avenue in west Mountain View, started about 1:20 p.m. and was finally brought under control more than an hour and a half later, fire department spokesman Al Tamagni said. The residents outside included a recent surgery patient in a wheelchair and two women without shoes: Iuni Sio and Setolo Mile, who called 911 and warned others in the building.

A woman living upstairs yelled and said there was a fire in her kitchen, Mile said. Mile ran downstairs to Sio's apartment and told her to call 911. The two then banged on doors and tried to get others out before running.

"When I got out, it was already full of smoke and flames," Sio said. "It was too fast. All I'm thanking the Lord for is that our children were in school when this happened."

The first firefighters to enter the inferno were turned back by flames and unable to finish an initial search of the building. Tamagni said later that they'd completed the search and found nobody inside. There were apparently no injuries. An investigator was probing its cause, Tamagni said.

About an hour after the fire began, flames still rose from the building. Firefighters atop three ladder trucks blasted water down on the structure, the force tearing away roofing material. The entire W-shaped building appeared to be ablaze at different times.

Later, a line of residents formed to give their personal information to representatives from the Red Cross of Alaska. Spokeswoman Laura Spano said the Red Cross set up an overnight shelter at the Fairview Rec Center.

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"Just for the night so far. We'll assess in the morning and see if people need somewhere to stay," Spano said.

Spano said it was still unclear how many people total were forced out by the fire.

Tamagni said about half of the building -- assessed at $1.8 million by the city, according to public records -- was damaged by fire, though water likely affected much more than that. All of the apartments would be unlivable, at least temporarily.

Among the displaced residents was Glenda Fataalii, who said her grandmother, just out of surgery a week ago, was inside and had been having a hard time walking.

"It's really hard for her to get up. So they just stood her up and told her to walk out. I mean, there was no time. It was really, really fast," Fataalii said. "She was out of breath."

Contact Casey Grove at casey(at)alaskadispatch.com. Follow him on Twitter @kcgrove.

Casey Grove

Casey Grove is a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He left the ADN in 2014.

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