Alaska News

Ketchikan newspaper delivery man helps officials puts out fire

KETCHIKAN -- A Ketchikan Daily News delivery driver helped wake a family and extinguish a house fire while on his normal paper route.

Alfred Woods was making his usual rounds around 3 a.m. Saturday when Bob Orr's shed caught fire.

"My second (delivery) was where the fire was. I delivered that (newspaper) and, as I was walking away from the house, I hear a 'whoosh.' I turned around and the smoke house was in flames," Woods told The Daily News. "Time did slow down dramatically."

Woods called 911 and started banging on doors and windows to wake Orr, his wife Diane Orr, their daughter and two grandchildren. Eventually Orr came to the door and started spraying the fire with a hose.

"He asked if everybody was out of the house and if everybody was up," Orr said of Woods. "He was real helpful, he's an angel. The guy's just unbelievable."

Orr had been smoking fish in two smokers on a deck next to his shed for two weeks.

The two men moved a full gasoline can away from the burning smokehouse before firefighters arrived to extinguish the flames.

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Orr said while he's not an expert, there isn't a lot of space between the shed and the house. He said light from the fire illuminated the whole living room.

"Without (Woods) banging and waking us up, the whole shed would have been a total loss, and it may have caught the house (on fire)," Orr said.

Ketchikan Assistant Fire Chief Jon Dorman said the department received calls about the fire shortly before 3:30 a.m. Saturday and that the blaze was mostly under control when firefighters arrived. Woods continued along his route after the KFD responded to the scene.

Orr gave Woods a thank you card and gift certificate to Fish Pirate's Saloon.

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