WASILLA -- As a wildfire burned around Willow last week, Alaska State Troopers and even a volunteer group of former military members and law enforcement officers made the rounds to stave off crime.
The efforts seem to have paid off, with just a handful of official reports of criminal activity surfacing so far from within the fire area.
Among them was a report Sunday that Alaska State Troopers had cited an unruly 50-year-old man who refused to let fire crews across his property even as flames marched through dry trees and duff nearby. Scott Leitner was blocking access to land in the heart of the fire zone, off Mile 74 of the Parks Highway, troopers said.
Troopers first paid a visit to Leitner on Wednesday -- a day that saw flames still flaring in trees in the area and smoke rising from the ground -- when they received a report of a disturbance. He was given a disorderly conduct warning "for recklessly creating a hazardous condition for firefighters in the area denying them access to his property where an active fire was occurring which was also threatening neighboring properties," according to an online dispatch posted Sunday.
Then, troopers had to come back. Firefighters in the area told them Saturday afternoon that Leitner had once again been "causing a disturbance and disrupting their ability to fight fires in the area," the dispatch said. Troopers cited him for disorderly conduct after finding him at his Houston home. The misdemeanor citation comes with a mandatory court appearance in Palmer.
The same neighborhood lost at least one home in the fire: that of Willow fire captain Leo Lashock, who lost 40 years of belongings when the house he lived in burned down Sunday as he evacuated residents in the fire's path.
Stealing as Willow burns
The disorderly conduct incident was one of several reports of people breaking the law as firefighters worked to quell the flames.
On June 15, the day after the fire started, troopers got a report of a burglary at a home off West Sunnyslope Way near Willow Creek Parkway -- the fire's southern front. Someone apparently broke into the home shortly after 2 a.m. Monday, when hundreds of residents had fled their homes and spent a sleepless night wondering if anything survived.
In a separate incident, a Talkeetna man faces possible criminal trespassing and theft charges after troopers say he stole copper wire from two houses destroyed in the fire.
Another arrest reportedly involved people stealing from a still-standing home belonging to a Willow resident.
Wasilla police on Friday arrested two Wasilla residents caught in the midst of a 3 a.m. burglary at the home of a man who was helping provide transportation during the fire, according to a story in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. Police say the two stole 32 guns and $10,000 worth of coins.
A Wasilla police officer happened to notice a door kicked in at the home and ended up catching 28-year-old Rachael West and 29-year-old Tyler Snodgrass red-handed, the Frontiersman reported. The two remained jailed as of Sunday.
Maintaining a presence
Some opted to ignore the advice to evacuate and instead stayed at their homes, in part to prevent possible looting. Despite the advisory in effect for their Long Lake subdivision of 30 or 40 homes, Tim and Kathy Leigh were among those who chose to stay behind.
If anyone approached their home, Tim Leigh said, he and his wife would stand in their driveway to scare off looters as reports surfaced of theft in the fire zone. Only one other household in the area stayed.
"For being under a voluntary evacuation, there was quite a little bit of traffic that there shouldn't have been," Leigh said, describing unfamiliar young men on four-wheelers wearing backpacks and cruising the gravel road.
"We made our physical presence known," he said.
'Volunteer good guys'
Overall, a major law enforcement presence during the fire last week kept criminal activity low in the area.
Troopers parked at roadblocks along the Parks Highway conducted regular patrols of evacuated neighborhoods, checking with drivers unfamiliar to them to guard against looting. Even on Friday, as residents were allowed to return to evacuated areas outside the fire perimeter, a trooper followed a pickup towing a trailer into the southern end of the fire zone to make sure the occupants were moving back in -- not taking anything out.
Along with troopers, another, less-official group conducted its own patrols just south of Willow last week.
A group called "Oath Keepers" papered about 120 homes around Long Lake with fliers. Oath Keepers formed nationally in 2009 and in Alaska about two years ago. The nonprofit is made up of current and former members of the military and law enforcement officers.
"Oath Keepers community preparedness teams are conducting security checks of your neighborhood," the fliers announced.
The area was under a voluntary evacuation advisory at the time; most residents left.
The group was invited in by two homeowners who asked them to run a neighborhood watch, according to Justin Giles, coordinator for the southern Alaska region of Oath Keepers. He called the group a "volunteer good guys" organization.
"We don't go barging in uninvited," Giles said by phone Sunday. "We met with the troopers almost immediately once we were at the homeowner's property there. We told them what we were going to be doing. They told us that if we interfered with any firefighters they'd ask us to leave. Aside from that, they appreciated the extra eyes."
Troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen said the trooper with knowledge of the situation wasn't available Sunday.
The Oath Keepers wanted to prevent crime, Giles said, with the idea that potential looters would spot the fliers or the patrols and move on.
About a dozen members of the group monitored the area. Troopers checked the IDs and backgrounds of the patrol members and verified that homeowners had invited them, Giles said.
Giles, a former U.S. marine, said during the fire his patrol ran across a man on a four-wheeler who took off. They reported it to troopers. He said he saw the man arrested later.
Reports of heavy looting during the 1996 Miller's Reach fire that burned 400 homes around Houston and Big Lake spurred the Oath Keepers' mission at Willow, Giles said. "We wanted to make sure that didn't happen this time."
Correction: A Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman article referenced in this story initially incorrectly described a Wasilla burglary victim as a firefighter. Authorities now say the homeowner was not a firefighter, but was helping provide transportation during the fire.