Unalaska, AK – Unalaska firefighters spent two hours containing a grass fire on Friday evening behind the Crowley dock on Captain's Bay Road.

Public Safety Department Fire Chief Sidney Johnson said the fire started when the wind blew embers from a controlled pallet fire up into the valley behind the Crowley facility, igniting the dry grass on an adjoining hill.

"It was a huge portion of the hill," Johnson said. "I would say, roughly estimating, about three-quarters the size of a football field."

Unalaska, AK – The Aleutian Rod and Gun Club held its annual Father's Day Pin Shoot on Sunday at the shooting range. The event was sponsored by the local chapter of the Alaska Peace Officers Association, and featured three categories:

-Forrest Bowers won in the revolver contest, followed by Bill Simms and Dan Masoni.

-Jamie Sunderland won the semi-automatic pistol round, followed by Forrest Bowers and Shannon Morrison.

Unalaska, AK – While the fate of a pirate tramper arrested in Morocco last month remains undecided, an international fisheries organization decided Thursday that the $9 million worth of Alaska pollock it was carrying may be released. In Unalaska, KIAL's Charles Homans reports.

Unalaska, AK – A 40-year-old man is being held by the Department of Public Safety after allegedly attacking his roommate with a chair to get him to stop snoring.

Alfred Tucker was arrested for first degree assault Thursday, after officers received a call from his residence and found Tucker's roommate, Ivan Sady Cantor-Rincon, with contusions and blood on his face and upper body and a missing tooth. A third roommate, Kevin Smith, told officers he saw Tucker pull Rincon off the bed where he was sleeping, throw him on the floor and beat him on the back and head with a metal chair. Smith said he got the chair away from Tucker and into another room, but returned to find Tucker attacking Rincon with another, wooden, chair.

Unalaska, AK – Public Utilities Department technicians are working to pinpoint the location of a problem responsible for a power outage that left Unalaska in the dark for about an hour and a half yesterday evening.

Public Utilities Director Dan Winters says the culprit was a power line in the Ballyhoo Road section of the grid that went to ground, knocking out power on the Unalaska side of town and about half of the Dutch Harbor side. The system was rerouted around the problem area last night, and technicians were still working to find and fix the downed line this morning.

Unalaska, AK – Development of a promising geothermal resource in Unalaska may be more difficult and expensive than city planners originally thought. In Unalaska, KIAL's Charles Homans reports.

Unalaska, AK – A 28-year-old man was killed last week in an accident onboard a fishing vessel in the Bering Sea.

Vinh Phan died instantly when his head was crushed in a hydraulic lock door on the fishing trawler Enterprise on June 3. The ship was about 450 miles from Dutch Harbor at the time.

The Unalaska Department of Public Safety investigated the incident on June 5 when the ship arrived in Dutch Harbor. Sgt. Matt Betzen said that following interviews with the ship's crew, Phan's death appears to have been an accident, and isn't under further investigation.

Unalaska, AK – A 28-year-old man was arrested Saturday night on numerous charges after allegedly crashing an SUV, badly damaging a building at UniSea and fleeing from Public Safety Department officers on foot.

Jimmy Sakar is charged with first degree vehicle theft, reckless endangerment, driving under the influence and several lesser offenses. Public safety received a call about an SUV being driven erratically at about 11:30 p.m. and swerving through the bridge construction site without stopping for construction crew members. An officer stopped the vehicle, which Sakar allegedly was driving. But when the officer got out of his own vehicle to speak with him, Sakar sped away at twice the speed limit, according to the police report.

Unalaska, AK – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service research vessel Tiglax is on its way to Avatanak Island, where researchers will gauge whether the agency's fox-eradication project there is having its intended effect.

Biologists onboard the Tiglax, which stopped in Dutch Harbor today, will be taking the first bird survey of Avatanak since the fox eradication.

Foxes are not native to most of the Aleutians, and have had a devastating impact on local bird populations since they were first introduced by Russian colonists in the 19th Century. The USFWS and the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska spent 2003 and 2004 trapping and shooting the foxes on Avatanak.