by Ashton Goodell
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- People in Russian Mission say an outsider saved their village from burning down.
A fire broke out near the village water towers, shooting flames several feet in the air.
Most of the men in Russian Mission, located in Western Alaska on the Yukon River, showed up with shovels to fight the fire, but it quickly became too much to handle.
An out-of-state construction worker used a backhoe to extinguish the fire with dirt.
After they finished stomping out the flames, the worker asked why so many people showed up to fight the fire. Their response was that it usually takes a village, not just one guy.
"That fire was really starting the take off… The wind would turn and it would start blowing it up right to the top, and the heat of it just drove us up over the lip of it… It just didn't look good before that construction worker with the Caterpillar showed up," said Doug James, who helped fight the fire.
