Anchorage Hillside neighborhood demands expedited chipping days as municipal contracting stalls

Brush piles are sitting uncleared on Anchorage's Southeast Hillside during peak fire season because the Municipality has not completed contracting for chipping services, the Huffman/O'Malley Community Council says.

Hillside residents, including elderly neighbors whom South High School students had volunteered to help prepare brush piles, are waiting amid what the council describes as a pervasive lack of communication about the status of the program. The council sits in the wildland-urban interface, where steep terrain and heavy vegetation press against residential development. It identifies wildland fire as "the preeminent natural disaster risk within HOCC's boundaries."

The council passed a resolution July 14 formally demanding the Municipality act. Council President Jason Norris signed it. District 6 Assembly Members Keith McCormick and Zac Johnson placed it before the full Anchorage Assembly as Assembly Informational Memorandum 106-2026, scheduled for the July 21 meeting. The memorandum frames the request as encouraging the Anchorage Fire Department to follow through on chipping days expeditiously.

The resolution builds on prior council action rather than raising a new issue. The council previously passed Resolution 2026-03 supporting the Anchorage Fire Department's wildland fire risk management efforts and has participated in the Wildland-Urban Interface Community Action Team since its inception. Now it is calling on the Municipality to "expedite all required contracting actions" to get chipping done before the 2026-27 winter season.

Norris wrote that "the continued delays in carrying out chipping days combined with a pervasive lack of communication about their status is contributing to an increasing perception that HOCC's efforts were wasted and these actions beyond HOCC's own control are diminishing HOCC's standing in its own community as a purveyor of accurate and timely information."

The resolution is scheduled to come before the Assembly at the July 21 meeting for review and information.