Alaska State Troopers arrested two people and recovered three of the five vehicles that were stolen from the Alaska base of the Pioneer Hot Shots and the Glacier Gannette crew.
On Tuesday and Wednesday the crews returned from two-week fire assignments to discover that their base had been ransacked. Most of the 25 personal vehicles belonging to the firefighters had been broken into and damaged.
One firefighter said the front and back windshields of his car were broken and some of his belongings in the car were stolen.
The thieves also broke into the crew’s personal lockers in the headquarters facility, stealing items such as cameras and iPods. They stole computers, water pumps, moose antlers, chain saws, and even took perishable items that were in the refrigerator.
The arrests were made as a result of a routine traffic stop on Sunday in Kenai when police stopped a Ford F-150 for speeding. The driver was immediately arrested for driving with a suspended license. When the Hot Shots returned and discovered the thefts on Tuesday, that truck and the other four were reported as stolen, which led to possession of stolen vehicle charges for the driver and his passenger.
