Man steals fire truck, drives to bar with flashing lights on

There’s no emergency quite like a beer emergency. And thus those who have known a driest hour may feel some sympathy for the young Alaska man who went to extreme lengths at the weekend to get his hands on some refreshing nectar.

Dawson Cody Porter stands accused of breaking into a firehouse Saturday night, stealing a truck and driving it 15 miles with the emergency lights flashing. The urgent destination? A bar in a neighboring town.

Sadly for Porter, whose name indicates a preference for dark beer, no thirst was slaked. Police caught up with him just as he’d parked outside the Fisherman’s Bar in the Bristol Bay Area town of Naknek, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

The 22-year-old booze-loving joyrider allegedly smashed the window of the King Salmon Fire Station in Eagle River with a piece of wood and made his way inside at around 9 p.m., police said.

He then started up one of the fire trucks, switched on its flashing lights, rammed clean through the empty station’s closed bay doors, and drove for half an hour before climbing out.

Porter, who works in King Salmon as a fisherman, caused roughly $10,000 worth of damage and rendered the $100,000 fire truck inoperable until repairs can be made, according to police.

Porter was charged with burglary, vehicle theft, and criminal mischief, and two counts of violating release conditions from a previous arrest several weeks ago. He is currently being held in the Bristol Bay Detention facility on a $10,000 cash bail.

An irrepressible penchant for getting kicks in fire station vehicles suggests the fisherman may be in the wrong line of work – he was arrested, along with another teenage boy, back in 2017 for joyriding a fire department pickup truck in the nearby city of Dillingham.