Author: alaskaadmin

A Kenai man is facing five felonies after being accused of letting a brush fire escape containment and start a wildfire near the Sterling Highway on the Kenai Peninsula last year.

The Alaska Department of Law’s Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals filed those felonies and five misdemeanors against Keith Richard Crowder, 48, on May 4. 

According to a probable cause statement attached to the charging document, Crowder was burning two debris piles, also known as slash piles, on June 11, when a Forest Service officer responded to a call reporting smoke in the area.

The officer told Crowder to put out the fires, and the next day, a state fire prevention officer talked with Crowder and issued him a large-scale burn permit, which Crowder signed.

Under the permit, he could burn only one pile at a time, and “he could not cap the piles with dirt because it would hold the heat in and continue to burn into the ground and when weather conditions got right, it could reignite and escape,” according to the probable cause statement.

On July 4, a medevac helicopter reported a wildfire burning near the TJ Seggy’s gas station on the Sterling Highway. Firefighters, aircraft and helicopters responded to the fire, extinguishing it by July 6, after it had burned 8-10 acres.

A state fire officer traced the fire’s origin to one of the slash piles on Crowder’s property.

“One of those slash piles showed clear signs that the fire had escaped the pile into the edge of the forest and appeared to be the specific origin point of the main fire perimeter,” according to the probable cause statement.

Another slash pile “was actively smoldering, and it appeared the remaining seven slash piles had extensive heat deep inside of them. It appeared that the piles had been capped with dirt rather than fully extinguished at the time burning was complete,” the statement reads.

Online court records list no attorney for Crowder, who faces arraignment at the Kenai courthouse on May 21.

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