Marine Bar flames started beneath the building, state fire marshal determines

Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department Administrator Aaron Powell on Sept. 17, 2026, was disconnecting hoses that were used to battle the Marine Bar fire two days earlier. (Jonathon Dawe / Wrangell Sentinel)

By Larry Persily

Wrangell Sentinel

The early morning fire Sept. 15 that destroyed much of the Marine Bar building was started by an “electric heating element” underneath the building, according to a preliminary investigation two days later by the state fire marshal’s office.

“The fire is being classified as an accident,” Austin McDaniel, communications director for the Department of Public Safety, said Sept. 18.

McDaniel described the heating element as similar to heat tape, used to prevent exposed pipes from freezing. The 60-year-old building is on pilings, with its back to the downtown Inner Harbor.

Personnel from the fire marshal’s office were in Wrangell on Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 16-17, to investigate the cause of the fire.

Rolland Wimberley, the business and building owner, said Sunday that no decision had been made yet whether to rebuild. “I’m sure we’ll do something,” he said. But first, “the insurance investigator needs to do their thing.”

Wimberley said he had not been back inside the building since the fire.

Every piece of firefighting equipment in town except for one tanker was on the scene to fight the blaze Tuesday morning, Sept. 15, said Aaron Powell, Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department administrator.

No injuries were reported, and firefighters succeeded in keeping the flames contained to the Marine Bar, Powell said. “We’re very lucky that there wasn’t any wind that night,” or the fire might have spread to nearby structures, he said.

The first trucks arrived on the scene shortly after 3 a.m. Almost 30 firefighters and borough employees worked the blaze and helped with the response, according to a statement issued by the borough manager on Sept. 17.

The fire was completely extinguished by about noon, according to borough officials.

“We also want to thank the many borough employees who stepped up in support of the response, whether that meant shutting off power to the site, managing the water system, securing the area, protecting nearby residents or providing the many other forms of support needed during an emergency of this scale,” Manager Mason Villarma said.

By mid-morning, much of the roof had collapsed. The damage was extensive to the building structure and its interior. Wimberley said it appears the building is a total loss.

With smoke drifting across much of the town that morning, several business opened late or closed early or simply closed for the day.

In addition to the bar, the building houses the Hungry Beaver Pizza restaurant and a couple of apartments. It is Wrangell’s only table-service restaurant open year-round for lunch and dinner.

About 13 employees worked at the bar and restaurant, Wimberley said.

Rodney Natt, a tenant in the building, called in the fire.

“I had woken up in the middle of the night,” about 2:30 a.m., he said in an interview on Sept. 18. He tried to go back to sleep but heard “popping and crackling.”

Natt opened the door to the wooden walkway on the harbor side of the building and saw thick smoke. “I grabbed my phone and ran out. That’s all I could do. It happened so fast,” he said, adding that he didn’t stop to put on shoes.

He said he lost everything in the fire, including 17 years of his music on hard drives — rap and DJ sessions. “All my life’s work is gone.”

He returned to the apartment a couple of days after the blaze and was able to find the key fob to his car, but the fire had burned off a piece of the key and he had to order a part — until it arrives, he can’t start his car.

An account has been set up at First Bank to accept donations to help Natt, who had lived at the Marine for almost a year, he said. As of last week, he had temporary housing at the Stikine Inn, where he works as a cook.

Natt and Wimberley were the only two people living in the apartments at the building. “I woke up with the rest of the town with the citywide alarm going off,” Wimberley said of his escape from the building the morning of the fire.

Tammy Davidson, whose grandparents Alan and Liz McKay bought the bar in 1964, remembers the restaurant started as a steakhouse before Patty Kautz (Dunbar) bought the business in 1984 and changed the restaurant to Hungry Beaver Pizza.

Davidson said she worked her first shift at the bar in 1980, at age 19.

Kautz died in 2024. She had owned and operated the Marine for 41 years.

The Marine was destroyed in a fire in July 1964. The McKays finished rebuilding the place by 1967, according to Sentinel news reports from that year.

The business has a long history with generations of her family, said Davidson, who lives around the corner from the Marine. “My family all signed their names” into concrete steps in front of the bar. She hadn’t yet summoned the courage to go look to see if the names are still there, she said.

• This story originally appeared in the Wrangell Sentinel.