A speedy and fortuitous response by local volunteer firefighters helped keep a small brush fire from becoming a major blaze Sunday afternoon near Mirror Lake in Chugiak.
“We were fortunate to catch it,” said Chugiak Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department assistant chief Clifton Dalton Sunday afternoon at Camp Gorsuch Boy Scout camp near Mirror Lake, where firefighters extinguished a 100-by-200-foot blaze before it burned any buildings.
Dalton said the fire was sparked by an underground electrical line. The department’s own firefighters discovered the blaze while putting out a smaller brush fire on the other side of the lake near Mirror Lake Park. The cause of that fire is under investigation.
“In the process of extinguishing that fire we spotted the smoke here,” he said.
Dalton said more than a dozen CVFRD units responded, as well as units from the Anchorage Fire Department, Central Mat-Su and the Alaska Division of Forestry.