The Anchorage Assembly passed Ordinance AO 2025-61 this week, introducing criminal penalties for unauthorized fires to address wildfire risks, particularly those linked to vagrant encampments, which are a growing threat in Anchorage.
The ordinance makes it a misdemeanor to start fires on public or private land without permission during fire season, on public roads or sidewalks, or in violation of a burn ban.
Numerous vagrant fires are being set on sidewalks and in greenbelts.
The new ordinance may deter negligent fire-starting, but it is unclear if vagrants will be aware or will abide by the ordinance. After all, the vagrant camps are lawless places, filled with garbage and stolen items.
Over 80% of Anchorage is considered urban wildland. Anchorage Fire Chief Doug Schrage called the ordinance critical and said firefighters are responding daily to outdoor fires that risk escalating.
Misdemeanor????
Seriously??? That doesn’t stop vagrants from burning shit down!!! A lot of these fires are being set on purpose! I will assure you that things WILL…get done real quick if the fires burn down the elite’s property!
You can’t solve Anchorage’s problems until the sheep wake and fire all those that created the problem. The assembly and mayor are Anchorage’s main problems.
They will start fire just to spent winter in warm jail.
They will not prosecute our precious homeless population, from whom many blessed dollars flow, but they will prosecute you if you light a fire in your backyard to roast marshmallows.
Good luck, Schrage. Have some margaritas with LaFrance -on us.
Oh, you mean you’ll start enforcing existing laws. Yeah, right. You know that any fire started by a “camper” or “unhoused” will not be prosecuted. For starters, what are they gonna pay the subsequent fine with? Stolen property? Like everything else, only citizens with a means to pay the fine(s) will be targeted.
The city will ONLY go after law abiding taxpayer, homeowners burning brush piles on their property.
Revenue generation.
The street cretins will get a pass just like they do for all the other crimes they commit EVERY day.
Vagrancy, trespassing, loitering, littering, public intoxication, public drug usage, trespassing, shoplifting, public urination and excrementation – need I go in – we all see the above behaviour regularly.
I wonder if the majority of those crimes weren’t being committed by white people, if there’d be a different level of enforcement?
P.s. Anchorage is a sh//hole city.
At least once a week my neighbor and I walk into a vacant property off of Chugach Way and either kick people out or pick up garbage, needles, bedding, etc. More often than not, we find evidence of fires set right in the ground with rubbish in a huge pile. Sooner or later these bums are going to burn down a neighborhood and/or kill people.
Is this a joke?
We don’t need new laws.
We need current laws enforced.