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Wildfires

$10,000 reward offered to solve vandalism of fire truck

Morning briefing for the Himalaya Road, Aggie Creek, and Obrien Fires.
Photo courtesy of Allen Watts, Alaska Fire Service
Morning briefing for the Himalaya Road, Aggie Creek, and Obrien Fires.

A commercial contractor fighting the Himalaya Road Fire and Aggie Creek Fire north of Fairbanks had their truck vandalized Saturday morning and are offering a $10,000 reward for information about it.

Ryan Mathwich owns J3 Contracting out of Milton-Freewater, Oregon, which had two people and the truck assigned to structure protection.

“This is a huge safety concern. We were thankful that they cut enough wires on the truck, um, as well that, that it wouldn't start because they also cut the brake lines. And so if the truck would've started and got rolling down the road. It wouldn't have been able to stop,” Mathwich said.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner first reported the story, describing the J3 Contracting crew sleeping in tents along with other fire crews right off of Olnes Pond. When they got up, they went through their routine check of the truck and could not get it started. Under the truck they found wires cut and dangling, and later found cut brake and transmission lines.

Mathwich says the truck was driven up from Oregon.

 “It's gonna take probably 30 days to get the parts." he said.

The vandalism was reported to the Alaska State Troopers, who are investigating.

It is insured, but the insurance won’t cover lost work for the crew.

“We were assigned to that fire for another 10 days. And then loss of potential work once we get back to the states with that truck,” Mathwich said.

Mathwich says this has happened before, in 2019. His company sends resources to many agencies across the west.

“It's tough. I mean, the State of Alaska called five times this year before I said, ‘okay, I'll send one truck up to you’,” he said.

He says the vandalism hasn’t soured him from sending crews to Alaska to fight fires. Now, he says the case is in the hands of Troopers.

Robyne began her career in public media news at KUAC, coiling cables in the TV studio and loading reel-to-reel tape machines for the radio station.