Chignik Fire

Yesterday Lisa and I were sampling fish on the dock when a sleazy guy stopped to watch. This happens often, because there's not a whole lot of girls out here. Usually we ignore them and keep working, and they wander off. But when this guy started to talk about a fire at the Chignik cannery, we warmed up to him really quick and started drilling him with questions.

Check out the Anchorage Daily News article on the Chignik fire. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt, but it's a devastating thing to happen--especially during fishing season. A processing plant is the heart that pumps life through a fishing community's veins, not to mention the seafood industry itself. Laura Ganis, who has been sampling there all summer, said people just stood and cried while it caved under flames that reached 100ft. She doesn't know if her samples, which were stored in a building next door to the fire, survived or not. We'll know in a couple of days when things are safe for her to check out. More importantly, hundreds of lives have been affected; the fleet will still be able to fish--their catch will be disbursed between here and Kodiak--but hundreds of people's livelihood is dependent on the processing, and there is nothing for them now except to be sent home on chartered flights out of Chignik. So sad.

Such a sad mess.