Still visible on the fence surrounding the building scorched by last week’s fire at the Royal Suite Lodge apartments is a memorial for Teu Nua, who was killed in the blaze. Visible beyond the fence Monday afternoon was a team of federal agents investigating the fire that ultimately took her life and the life of another woman, Vivian Hall.
When the deadly blaze broke out at the apartment early Thursday morning, the Anchorage Fire Department’s sole fire investigator, Brian Dean, knew the resulting investigation would be too much for him to handle by himself. Dean says in the five years he’s worked for the department, there’s only been one other fire with this much damage and destruction that he can remember.