ANCHORAGE (AP) -- A volunteer fire department chief, his wife and their daughter are believed to be the victims of a house fire that killed three people in Copper Center.
Positive identification has not yet been made, but troopers said Michael Voyles, 36, Ruthie Michelle Voyles, 34, and daughter Mary Allie Patterson, 12, lived in the log home.
Trooper spokesman Greg Wilkinson said the victims died of smoke inhalation. The state does not expect results from DNA and dental records for several weeks, Wilkinson said. Family members told troopers the three family members were in the house.
Voyles was recently named chief of the volunteer fire department in nearby Gulkana. He also volunteered for the Copper Center fire department.
He grew up in the cabin that was later given to him by his grandfather. It was the first cabin in Copper Center with two stories and running water, said his mother, Lisa Yoshimoto.
Voyles recently had installed a wood-burning furnace in the back of the house.
The tragedy might have been avoided if the family had a smoke detector in their home, said John Bond, deputy state fire marshal.
``If you burn wood, most people don't have smoke detectors because they are a nuisance,'' going off often because wood fires produce smoke, Bond said. He told the Anchorage Daily News everyone should have them anyway.
Bond said Voyles apparently returned home from his work as a security officer for Gulkana in the early morning hours Saturday. He then probably filled his wood-burning furnace in the back of the house and went to bed, Bond said. The temperature that night dropped as low as minus 43 degrees.
Firefighters several hours later were called to the scene. When they arrived, the place was already leveled, Bond said. The only thing left of the two-story home was three-foot walls, Bond said.
Bond said conditions were the worst for fighting a fire he's seen in 20 years on the job. The cold made the wood dry and brittle and froze hoses.
Copper Center is a community of about 450 people on the Richardson Highway between Miles 101 and 105. It is on the west bank of the Copper River at the confluence of the Klutina River.
Information from: Anchorage Daily News
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