Nearly 20 people were displaced Wednesday by a fire at a Fairbanks apartment building where two people were found dead, which Alaska State Troopers say was set by a man during a domestic disturbance.
Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said that the identities of the deceased – a woman found dead when troopers responded to the building, on the Old Steese Highway near Curry's Corner, and a man who barricaded himself in a room – weren't being released Thursday. No other injuries were reported in the fire.
Both bodies are being sent to Anchorage for an autopsy, to confirm their identities and causes of death.
"The two people believed to be involved in the domestic disturbance are the two people that are deceased," Peters said. "We certainly think that we know who these people are, but we need to confirm they are who they are."
An initial call reporting the disturbance came in to troopers from another tenant of the 10-unit building around 7 a.m. Wednesday.
"Essentially the complaint was that the man was about to assault the woman," Peters wrote in an email.
Troopers arriving soon after the initial call found the woman dead in an apartment, and the man barricaded in a back room of the same apartment. Troopers' Special Emergency Reaction Team and hostage negotiators tried to contact the man, but weren't successful.
"(T)he man refused to speak with troopers during entirety of the situation," Peters wrote.
Troopers evacuated the rest of the apartment building when they noticed smoke rising from the back room at about 8:45 a.m. To ensure fire crews' safety, Peters said troopers had to check an area adjacent to the room where the man was barricaded to see if he had moved there before they could allow firefighters to respond.
Mitch Flynn, chief of the Steese Volunteer Fire Department, said troopers initially requested an ambulance on standby at the building, at 588 Old Steese Highway North, just before 7:15 a.m. Delays due to the standoff and subsequent evacuation gave the first-floor fire a head start before crews could start fighting it, letting the blaze burn inside a wall into the building's upper level.
"The fire was probably going for a good 15 to 20 minutes – that's all it takes, depending on how (the man) started it," Flynn said.
Fire crews were able to bring the blaze under control after 30 to 45 minutes despite a series of flare-ups in the building's attic.
Flynn said the woman was dead prior to the fire, and the man was later found dead inside the barricaded room. The combination of the standoff and ensuing fire, however, prevented crews from removing the woman's body or trying to rescue the man.
"If there was any possibility they were alive, any one of 'em, we'd have pulled them out, but it was too far into it – there was no possibility of even finding them," Flynn said.
Roughly 40 percent of the building was destroyed by the fire, Flynn said, which consumed two apartments and spread smoke damage through the structure.
"With the water damage and the snow load on the roof and having the fire in the attic, we're concerned about the trusses being compromised," Flynn said. "With so much smoke damage in there, it's not a healthy environment to live in."
Red Cross of Alaska spokeswoman Lisa Miller said the agency assisted a total of 19 residents from seven families displaced by the blaze. They received vouchers to cover food and housing costs, and a local hotel offered a discounted rate to house the families and their pets.
Case workers were coordinating with other local charities to assist the building's residents following the initial Red Cross aid, Miller said.
Peters said investigators were still learning more Thursday about the initial disturbance. Representatives from the state fire marshal's office were investigating the exact cause of the fire, according to Flynn.
"It's sad," Flynn said. "You wonder what pushed these people to that brink."