Building Resilience: AVF Pilots Community Fire Training in Igiugig
In late January, Alaska Venture Fund partnered with the Village of Igiugig to pilot a community-wide fire preparedness training, a project of AVF’s Wildfire Program.
“I feel ten times more comfortable being ready to respond to something,” said Jeff Bringhurst, a longtime Igiugig resident who participated in the weeklong training.
Igiugig, a remote Tribal village of about 70 in Southwest Alaska, is among many Alaska communities without professional fire response. Of 285 communities in Alaska, only 50 have registered fire departments that meet national minimum standards for preparedness. Over the past 20 years, Alaskans in communities without fire departments that meet these standards were 9 times as likely to die from fires as those in communities with adequate protection.
As climate change exacerbates the frequency and intensity of wildfire in Alaska, there is increasing need for local preparedness in Alaska’s far-flung communities. Alaska Venture Fund is working to meet this need with holistic community-based education and training – empowering communities to protect their people, structures, and lands.
Lisa Amaniq Shield, AVF’s community wildfire resilience and workforce coordinator, developed and led the training along with Paul Pellegrini, a retired wildland and urban firefighter and trainer.
The training included components for the entire community as well as activities targeted for different ages and interests. “Everyone who was in town got training,” Lisa said. Activities occurred at the library, the school, and tribal offices. Community members who were housebound received one-on-one training in their homes.
Lisa Amaniq Shield with the children’s books she authored.
The training included discussions, demonstrations, scenario modeling, and games. For part of the week, participants chose one of two tracks, (1) community preparedness and education and (2) fire response. The younger children worked through a series of original stories written by Lisa and illustrated by Crystal Jackson, published in a limited run for the Igiugig training.
Animals are the main characters in these books, which weave in Yugtun (Central Yu’pik) language and interactive activities: Children are given small drums, and in the first story, children beat the drums to the rhythm of the smoke alarm. Subsequent stories call on them to create words and movements to pass on the animals’ fire safety lessons.
“Traditionally, that’s how lessons are passed on – through song and dance and storytelling,” Lisa says.
The children performed the dance at a community potluck that culminated the training, sharing the lessons learned and inviting community members to learn the dance.
Martha Crow was one of the adults who joined the children. She said it was uplifting to see the children integrate Yu’pik language, and use dance to diffuse the weightiness of the week’s lessons: “It was heavy topics; we heard real-life experiences about deaths that could have been prevented. The music and the dance and the singing really did bring a healing finish.”
Participants say they are already using what they learned. Martha said she plans to clear the wild sedge around her house to reduce fire risk, and is evaluating her home electronics in light of what she learned about electrical fires. Jeff said he placed a tupperware of baking soda next to his family’s stove in case of grease fires, replaced a smoke detector, and ordered extra length of hose to ensure water can reach every room in the house.
Jeff, who operates the community’s water system and small farm, said the training helped the community address longtime concerns: “There’s a lot of things we’ve been talking about for years in this village - we’ve been fearful about wildfires, so having Paul and Lisa go through all our fire equipment and start to organize it into response-ready [condition] was super helpful. And tell us what we need to get to make us more effective.”
Martha said she hoped all communities in Alaska could get this training: “There’s all kinds of different learning and thinking opportunities with this training. This is a very much-needed training for all villages in Alaska.”
AVF shares that goal. Lisa and Paul are leading a “train-the-trainer” course in Anchorage this week to expand the program’s capacity. Fourteen participants from Palmer, Anchorage, Seldovia, Nenana, North Pole, Homer, Aniak, Naknek, Dillingham, Aleknagik, Iliamna, and Fairbanks will come away equipped to help communities across Alaska build their preparedness and resilience in the face of growing fire risk.
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The FIRE GAP program empowers communities through tailored training, mentorship, and resource provision to manage both wildland and structural fires. Designed to build resilience in remote areas, the program emphasizes cultural relevance, community ownership, and a scalable approach to fire safety and preparedness. Learn more about this innovative program here.
Written by Rebecca Braun Published: February 2025
Title image of the Dry Creek Fire in 2021 from BLM Alaska Fire Service.
All other images were provided by the AVF team.
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Martha Crow was one of the adults who joined the children. She said it was uplifting to see the children integrate Yu’pik language, and use dance to diffuse the weightiness of the week’s lessons: “It was heavy topics; we heard real-life experiences about deaths that could have been prevented. The music and the dance and the singing really did bring a healing finish.”