“What Happened in Craig” After visiting the Investor fire scene at Ben’s Cove, the Anchorage CIB contingent met up at the Craig police department to make arrangements for everything they’d need for the scene investigation. The Craig police chief wouldn’t let them go before telling them he feared the fire on the Investor would flare up again and burn up all their evidence. Sgt. Stogsdill agreed — but wanted to know what the chief could do to help.”We’ve got some foam we could use,” the chief gamely offered, still stinging from an earlier rebuff at the hands of the troopers.
Stogdsill took him up on his offer. Later that evening, in a matter of five minutes, the chief extinguished the Investor fire once and for all. But it was a painful reminder of how things can break down during a high-profile criminal investigation.
Sgt. Jim Stogsdill, AST
The trouble — the rebuff of the Craig police chief — had occured earlier that day, the day after the fire, when Capt. Kolivosky, Lt. McCoy, Trooper Anderson and VSPO Mackie had gone out to the Investor in Mackie’s boat. 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. 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.
Except, of course, it wasn’t. Rebuffing the foam had allowed the fire to linger for precious hours more.
Excerpts from the unpublished original manuscript, “Sailor Take Warning,” by Leland E. Hale.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.”
Copyright Leland E. Hale (2018). All rights reserved.
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