Smoke lofting into the air northeast of Sweet Home Friday morning, June 27, indicated a fire, but it was intentional – set to give students in the Mid-Willamette Valley Interagency Wildland Fire School a chance to test the classroom knowledge they’d gained over the previous five days.
The annual school, based at Sweet Home High School June 23-27, attracted a record crowd – more than 200 wildland firefighters and instructors, who converged on a logged-off…