Stubborn Fire, Hard to Extinguish

Excerpts from the unpublished original manuscript, “Sailor Take Warning,” by Leland E. Hale. That manuscript, started in 1992 and based on court records from the Alaska State Archive, served as the basis for “What Happened in Craig.” In this installment, troopers address the stubborn fire still burning onboard the Investor. It was a fire so stubborn it took multiple efforts to extinguish.

Trooper Anderson had orders to send the bodies on the first plane out of Craig. On the day after the fire, he arrived at the cannery warehouse at eight o’clock in the morning. By nine, he’d taken the body bags to the seaplane float. By ten, the Investor remains were on their way to Ketchikan. At eleven, the first of the big guns began to arrive.

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Trooper Bob Anderson in 2007 (retired)

Captain M. C. “Mike” Kolivosky, the commander of the A detachment of the Alaska State Troopers, had personally flown down from the headquarters office in Juneau. A gregarious, cigar-chomping Cubs fan, Kolivosky was there to oversee the investigation. He was accompanied by Lieutenant Roger McCoy, his deputy commander. By the time they landed, they had seen the Investor from the air. They knew she was still on fire.

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AST Col. Mike Kolivosky in 2003 (retired)

The two officers were met at the seaplane float by Trooper Anderson and Jerry Mackie. The twenty-year-old Mackie had assisted Anderson in the past, having worked as a Village Public Safety Officer responsible for search and rescue, emergency medical aid and, sometimes, law enforcement The foursome did not linger at the float. Instead, they headed straight to the Investor in Mackie’s boat.

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Jerry Mackie in his 20’s (Alaska State Legislature)

When they arrived at Ben’s Cove, they found a miserable sight. The Investor was beached near the shore and tilting precipitously on its starboard side. Next to it was the tugboat Spruce, which had run aground during low tide and now looked like a giant waterbug gone high and dry.

Worried that crucial evidence was being destroyed by the stubborn fire, Kolivosky wanted it put out once and for all. The Craig police chief, already at the scene, offered firefighting foam. He was rebuffed. The fire was outside his jurisdiction. Trooper Anderson remembered the firefighting helicopter used by one of the local logging companies. They brought in the helicopter and had it dump sea water on the Investor’s hull.

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The words “delicate” and “dainty” could hardly be used to describe the helicopter’s firefighting efforts. The helicopter dipped its 500-gallon bucket into the sea and, hovering over the vessel at an altitude of about one hundred feet, unceremoniously dumped its entire load on the still-smoking hulk. The boat shimmied and shook as the mass of water exploded on its fire-scarred deck. The fire proved surprisingly resistant, however, and only after several fly-bys was it extinguished.

Copyright Leland E. Hale (2018). All rights reserved.


Craig

Order “What Happened In Craig,” HERE and HERE, true crime from Epicenter Press about Alaska’s Worst Unsolved Mass Murder.

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