Forest Fire

The call came as I was heading back from McMinnville in a fire department rig. Wildfire in Willamina, switching on lights and siren I followed the Chief's rig in front of me. Arriving at the Station I threw my turnouts on, grabbed my Wildland jacket and jumped in the Chief's rig to head to the scene. As we climbed the mountain, I could see the massive column of smoke above the ridge.

As we pulled up with the other first responders, I sat there stunned. There was fire on both sides of the road. On the left the fire was coming down the ridge, Ahead of us the fire had jumped the road and was moving down the canyon below us and coming back towards us. Looking at Chief for confirmation, I jumped out of the rig and began snapping photos.

For the next 7 hours I hiked up and down the road passing information to the Chief as I snapped photos. We were in a ravine that made communication very difficult, no cell phone service and the radios were spotty. Around 11:00 pm we jumped in the rig and decided to head up the mountain to "Command" to get more information. A couple of miles up the road, we were stopped by a burning tree across the road, Chief quickly put the rig in reverse and began backing back down the narrow one lane road. In a state of shock I watched as a giant fir tree cashed down within feet of the front of the truck. It was then that I found that I, the professional communicator suddenly could not get anything out of my mouth but a gasp and the word "tree".  "Uh huh, there was a tree across the road" the Chief muttered as he continued looking back over his shoulder backing down the road. Still unable to get many words out of my mouth, I finally stammered, "New tree! New tree!"

And that is when he took a look in front in front of us and saw the tree that had come down. Surprised, he continued to back down the road as quickly as we could. Arriving back with the other rigs and fire fighters, we grabbed a couple of crew members and a chain saw and hiked back to the last tree that had come down. Chief and I had the job of keeping watch for other falling trees in the burning forest around us as the 2 crew members began to cut the tree into large sections that were then rolled off to the side of the road.

Getting that tree cleared, we hiked up to the burning tree that had first stopped us and began the process all over again. Finally we were rolling the last flaming section off the road as we quickly hiked back down the burning forest road.

I have to say that it was exciting, horrifying and sometimes scary to be on that fire. But I came away with a new appreciation of the skill and expertise of the people working the fire. I  also came away with everyone hearing about the near miss with the tree. I knew that because every time I walked by someone would say, "Tree, tree!"

I have a feeling, I have a lot of teasing ahead of me .....

Just Connie