Along the Eagle River Valley, Turnagain Arm and a few other far-flung parts of Anchorage, a burning house or a brush fire poses a thorny dilemma for the Anchorage Fire Department.
Property owners in some of the city's more rural regions don't pay taxes for fire service. A bill can be sent later if the Anchorage Fire Department decides to respond to a call, which was the case for a fire at the Turnagain Arm Pit restaurant in June 2016, and a house fire off Eagle River Road in September.
But in both those cases, the final bill amounted to less than $5,000, a fraction of the total cost of the response, said Jodie Hettrick, deputy chief of operations at AFD.
The resulting cost-shift to other taxpayers reflects a long-standing problem of paying for fire service in every part of Anchorage. One partial solution will likely appear on the city ballot in April: Anchorage Assemblywoman Amy Demboski wants voters to decide whether to add roughly 500 Eagle River Valley properties to Anchorage's fire service area.