Capital City Fire/Rescue extinguished a Monday afternoon fire that sent smoke billowing into the sky from a boat moored outside Aurora Harbor.
No one was injured in the fire, which took place aboard the stripped tugboat Consul D, owned by Steve Hamilton. The Consul D is one of a motley collection of floating objects owned by Hamilton and tied together outside the harbor entrance.
According to harbor department records, the Consul D has been at its present location outside the harbor since February. It now sits tied up alongside the landing craft Pegasus, a barge with a plastic-sheeting greenhouse, and a piece of an old Aurora Harbor float.
The Consul D’s deckhouse has been entirely removed, and from the shore, it resembles an oblong barge.
Fire Marshal Dan Jager, on the scene of Monday’s fire, said the incident was related to Hamilton’s ongoing work.
“They were chopping up the boat and hull, and were burning it a piece at a time,” he said.
On Monday morning, the waste fire escaped from its enclosure and spread. Smoke from the fire was visible about 2:20 p.m., prompting a call to the fire department.
No one was aboard the boat at the time; its owner arrived after the fire started.
The fire posed a problem for CCFR, which does not have a fire boat and did not have easy access to the Consul D beyond the harbor breakwater.
The city’s harbor department supplied the solution, offering a small landing craft and crew. Firefighters used a portable pump to put water on the fire, and Coast Guard Station Juneau’s Response Boat-Medium also contributed with water from its own pump.
Once water hit the fire, it took less than 30 minutes for the smoke to disappear.
Jager said boat fires are relatively unusual in Juneau, despite its nautical tradition, with only “3-4 a year.” The Consul D case was unique because it was not accessible by a harbor float.
Hamilton, who arrived on the Consul D not long after the fire began , was not immediately reachable for comment.
• Contact reporter James Brooks at 523-2258 or james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.
Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly named the burned boat the Consul B. It is the Consul D.
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Tugboat Consul D burns outside of Aurora Harbor on Monday.
Steve Hamilton watches as members of the U.S. Coast Guard, Capital City Fire/Rescue and harbor department put out a fire on the tugboat Consul D outside of Aurora Harbor on Monday.
A tugboat anchored just outside Aurora Harbor burns on Monday afternoon.
A tugboat anchored just outside Aurora Harbor burns on Monday afternoon.
