Fire alarm trips at Wrangell Medical Center

At approximately 10 a.m., Aug. 24, a fire alarm was tripped at the Wrangell Medical Center. The fire department responded quickly, with 14 members of the department showing up. The forest service also arrived on-scene to offer assistance.

The hospital was searched, but no fire could be found. At about 10:37 a.m., it was determined that it was a false alarm and the medical center nor anybody inside were in danger. Business returned to normal shortly afterward.

"They didn't find anything," said Dorianne Sprehe, with the fire department. "So it was a good false alarm drill."

According to Aaron Angerman, the WMC does have a fire evacuation plan in place in the event of an emergency, but no evacuation was made during the alarm. He said that if the situation had been more "up in the air" about what was going on, they would have evacuated the building. As things stood, the staff did not want to disrupt services for a non-emergency, as it was determined to be.