The Holiday Farm Fire
Get Out! Now! A Firefighter’s Account of the Holiday Farm Fire of 2020
Part 1/12
Introduction
This book is based on what happened on Labor Day of 2020 in the McKenzie River Valley of Western Oregon. The events in this story were gathered from interviews with the main character, and it is written from his point of view.
The author also studied videos and emergency radio recordings. Names were changed to protect the identity of many people. Some of the smaller details came from what the main character said when interviewed. Many of the things said and thoughts are fictional, from the author’s imagination. The author has tried to recreate the actual events to the best of her ability but admits that she may have made mistakes. This book may not be used in a court of law.
It was almost 7pm and I was hungry! All I had wanted when I came home from Family Camp over Labor Day weekend was to eat dinner and get a good night’s sleep before starting school the next morning as a middle and high school art teacher.
This afternoon when I got the message about the big windstorm, I tried to finish shopping for art supplies as quickly as I could. I contacted Katie, my wife, for the first time in a while to send her a text about the windstorm notice I’d seen. In a message, I asked her to do the usual prep in case the power went out. In other words, get the flashlights and candles ready, charge the cellphones, and fill the water jugs.
When you live in a forest as dense as ours, a windstorm means trees falling on power lines and trees falling on power lines means power outages. Sometimes the power is just out for hours, but with a storm like this, we could probably expect to have our power out for days.
Katie had dinner ready for me when I got home. We still hadn’t spoken much since a fight a few days ago, but we sat down with our daughter Elizabeth to eat right when I got home. We were in the middle of blessing the food when I heard my emergency radio make its beeping and hissing noises.
I went still as I listened.
A voice broke through the static: “Tree on downed power lines across McKenzie River Drive.”
I put my palms down on the table and pushed myself up. Already tired, I grabbed my radio and went to change into my blue volunteer firefighter t-shirt.
Katie called out from the table, “We’ll save your plate for when you get back.”
I hoped we would have power to heat it up when I got back home. As I headed out the door for the fire station, I couldn’t shake a feeling that something really bad was about to start.
When I arrived in the tiny town of Rainbow a few miles down the highway from us, I could tell the power was out because there were no lights on even though the sun was beginning to set in our valley. A bunch of tiny towns line the McKenzie River, forming the community of the McKenzie Valley. The sun could no longer be seen peeking through the trees as tall as skyscrapers covering the mountains that surround the valley.
Since I saw no fire, I assumed the power lines had been set to go off as soon as they were down. A huge tree lay across the road, its trunk as big around as a monster truck tire. Pine needles covered the long, thick branches.
I could see broken poles that had held up the power lines and the power lines laying on the road. Before we worked on clearing the road, the guy from the local power company came to make sure those power lines were dead. If we didn’t do that before we started working on getting the tree off the lines, we could get shocked and die. After he told us that the lines were dead (or in other words, had no electricity running through them) we talked for a minute.
I stepped over some big branches as I walked towards him and said, “A fire tonight in these high winds would be our worst nightmare and I’m afraid power lines going down could cause a fire. Is there anything you can do?”
He nodded his head, “I’ve done everything I can on my end to be sure that these lines won’t cause a fire, but I can’t make that call for the other power company.”
He gave me half a smile and motioned that it was out of his hands by throwing his hands out with his palms up. Some of the crew held signs to stop traffic, some used chainsaws and started chopping the tree into pieces small enough to move, and I started moving the pieces to the side of the road. This sort of thing was what a big guy like me was good for.
I also saw the Forest Service Fire Chief Dean, and he said they were out looking for a fire because people had called in that they smelled smoke. So far, Dean’s wildland firefighting crew hadn’t found any fire. I hoped it was just people’s imagination, but probably not.
Between us and the other crews working to clear the road, it had taken about an hour to cut up the tree that had fallen on the road and get all the pieces off the road. Then we were able to get McKenzie River Drive opened to cars again. It had gotten dark during that call, and the power had gone off in my little town of McKenzie Bridge, too.
When I got back to the station there was no power to close the huge garage doors to the bay where we kept the ambulance, the fire engines, and the water tankers. I told the other volunteer who was with me she should go home to her family while I got the generator running and the bay doors shut. She smiled and gave me a hug. Before she got in her car, she called out, “Thanks, Brent.”
I didn’t know it would take so long to get the generator going, but I knew that we would need the fire station to have power tonight. With predicted wind speeds of 60–80 miles per hour, sparks from a fire could travel faster than cars on a freeway.
As I messaged Chief for instructions and tried to make sense of the generator’s user’s manual, I thought about how being a firefighter is often just a lot of preparing for a disaster, like getting a generator working.
After about an hour, I had success. The generator at the Upper McKenzie Fire Department roared to life. It was the largest generator I’d ever worked on, and gas engines were not my specialty, so I felt pretty satisfied with my problem-solving tonight. I was sure it would be a long night, but at least for now I could go home.
It must have been my imagination because I was smelling dinner. My stomach growled a little as I thought about how I hadn’t yet had one bite of the cheesy mashed potatoes, green beans and turkey Katie made. After eating, I was probably going to pass out. I was in the middle of shutting the bay doors when my radio beeped and hissed again.
Another voice broke through the static on the radio: “Brush fire just east of Holiday Farm RV Resort off McKenzie Highway, Milepost 47. Tree down on power lines.”
I closed my eyes and prayed, “Jesus…”
We had never had to fight a fire in 60- to 80-mile per hour winds. We knew that a fire in this wind would be nearly impossible to contain. We were on edge today and as ready as we could be, but what could we really do in this?!
I picked up my radio, pressed down the button, and let them know who I was by telling them my number: “28 35,” and let them know where I was: “at station 1.”
I was also letting them know that I was coming to help with that short phrase.
