KASILOF, Alaska, Jan. 5, 2007 – Lois Harter, a cog in the Iditarod organization, escaped with a purse and two dogs from her burning home in Chugiak on Sunday night, leaving Harter with little besides her pajamas with one hectic month left before the start of Iditarod 35.
“I lost everything,” said Harter, who would normally be organizing banquet tickets and coordinating volunteers, among a variety of other duties in the enormously complex and virtually entirely volunteer race start. Harter also ghost-writes the popular Zuma’s Paw Prints, an online account of Iditarod news for children, from the perspective of Zuma, the Iditarod Trail Committee’s canine mascot.
Harter, who has a heart condition and diabetes, was focused on anything but Iditarod work on Monday, directing her energy toward finding temporary housing, clothes, medicine and the right kind of oxygen apparatus that she uses for therapy while sleeping.
“People are starting to come through with clothes,” she said by cell phone, over the voices of family and friends working in the background. “Basically, I’m going to have to go to temporary housing, then look for a long-term replacement. I’m a 67-year-old with diabetes and heart trouble, and it’s not easy looking at rebuilding.”
Harter didn’t sound as if she were wallowing in self pity – far from it – she was just stating the facts. In the few hours after the fire that destroyed her 2,600-square-foot house, she said she already had drummed up volunteer labor for carpentry, electrical and plumbing. All she needed was donated lumber and hardware.
Her house was not insured.
“This is my second house fire,” she said. “I had one when I was young and had babies, sparked by lightning in Florida. And now this. This is by far the worst.”
She said fire officials told her the fire started in the wiring in the walls of her basement. “It simmered some time before I started smelling smoke,” but she couldn’t see anything amiss, she said. She called her son, who lives only 3-1/2 miles away, but by the time he got there, she could see a light layer of “white smoky air in the living room.” Her son went downstairs and found a fire in a corner of the basement, but when he went to spray it with an extinguisher, the flames started running up the wall and ceiling. “He rushed out of there and made me and the dogs get out of the house,” she said. Actually, a neighbor and her son crawled back under the smoke to rescue one of the dogs, a terrier mix that was confused and running in circles.
The house is now rubble, said Joanne Potts, the Iditarod’s race director. Potts took Harter out to buy some clothes Monday afternoon. The main floor collapsed atop the basement, Potts said, “so everything’s down where the basement was. Her grandkids were raking and digging, hauling things out, seeing what they could find. They found a diary and Harter’s class ring in the rubble.”
Harter has volunteered for the Iditarod since 1975 and has been a paid, hourly employee since 1988.
Obviously, she needs a lot of assistance. Clothing and other donated items small enough to mail or deliver in person can be sent to: Lois Harter, c/o Golden Days Dog Grooming and Doggie Day Care, 6209 Mike St., #2, Anchorage, AK 99518. Harter wears a size 3X. Friends also were in the process Monday of setting up an account for financial donations at Wells Fargo bank, but that effort was still under way Monday evening.
An account has been set up for donations. The account, called the Lois I. Harter Donation Fund, is number 7527360379 at Wells Fargo Bank in Eagle River. Anyone wiring money to the account needs this routing number: 121000248. And anyone sending a check should write in the memo section “Lois I. Harter Donation Fund,” and, on the back of the check, write “for deposit only” along with the account number.