ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An old school in the Western Alaska village of Hooper Bay caught fire Thursday, and flames raced through the remote Eskimo community, forcing dozens of people to flee.
With the fire roaring unchecked, local police quickly evacuated about 250 people from burned and threatened homes. No injuries were reported among the 1,100 residents.
The school and nearby buildings burned to the ground, said Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Bill Tandeske. At least 12 homes, a teacher housing complex and one of two village convenience stores also burned, sending up clouds of black smoke.
“I can see the flames of the store burning,” Emma Bunyan said in a phone interview from her home a half mile from the blaze. “I can hear the ammunition in the store popping, too.”
Also gone was her mother’s home, said Bunyan, 46, a lifelong resident of the Yupik Eskimo village, which is 500 miles west of Anchorage and far from the state’s limited road system.
“To see my old stomping grounds get burned, it’s kind of sad,” she said. “But fortunately no humans got burned.”
Alaska State Troopers and firefighters flew to the remote village and the state Division of Forestry sent a helicopter and an air tanker.
Firefighters from the nearby village of Chevak arrived earlier and were the first to battle the blaze. The American Red Cross of Alaska also expected to send volunteers there.
“There are no roads or a formal fire department with big shiny red fire engines here,” Tandeske said. “The water supply is also a challenge. All the things we take for granted in urban areas are not there, which makes everything so much more difficult.”
The Alaska National Guard was notified by a village council member shortly before 8 a.m., said Guard spokeswoman Christine Nangle. The caller said the village had no equipment or resources to handle the fire, Nangle said.
Hooper Bay officials could not immediately be reached Thursday, but Assistant State Fire Marshal Rusty Belanger said the village was among rural communities that received portable firefighting equipment in 2003 through the federally funded Project Code Red.
The equipment – contained in two metal trailers that can be hooked up to small vehicles – uses compressed air to produce firefighting foam from a small amount of water.
“Whether they chose to use the equipment or the fire was already to a point beyond the capacity of the equipment is unknown at this time,” said Belanger, who planned to fly to the remote village with other agency officials.
The cause of the fire was unknown and will be investigated, according to authorities.
By early afternoon, only the store was still ablaze, while the other buildings smoldered and smoked, trooper Ramin Dunford said. He said local authorities had given arriving crews a good start in dealing with the emergency.
A new school across the village is under construction and was intended to replace the one that burned Thursday. But it isn’t scheduled for completion until January, Bunyan said.
“Our kids have no school now,” she said. “I don’t know what they’re going to do when school opens in a few weeks.”
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