Kelly Kenoyer
It was supposed to be her last day firefighting before she began teaching for fall, but the weather had other plans.
Twenty-five-year-old Hailey Schilling, a third-grade teacher at Foster Elementary School, had spent the summer working for the Oregon Department of Forestry as a member of an initial attack crew – the firefighters who get on the scene first when a fire is still small, and try to keep it that way.
Her Labor Day shift was supposed to be the last of the season before school started, until historic strong winds swept through the community that evening, driving existing fires to new extremes and setting numerous others from fallen power lines.
Schilling was quickly called out to a fire by milepost 35 of Highway 20, where she and others worked to get the blaze under control, protecting the community from disasters that were striking others in the region.
“We just started that, rolling out hose and hiking it up the hill and digging fireline,” she said.
Schilling stayed on after her normal shift that Monday, Sept. 7 until 10 p.m., then went home and slept for a few hours before being called out again around 3 a.m. Tuesday morning.
By then, it was clear how serious the situation was.
“There were so many fires, and I called my boss at the school and was like, ‘Hey, the world’s on fire right now,” Schilling said. “I ended up going to fight fire that day.”
School was cancelled, so she stayed on, working from 3 a.m. to 7 p.m. that night.
Schilling isn’t alone as a teacher who fights wildfires in the summer.
High school teacher and coach Tomas Rosa and Junior High Athletic Director and teacher Craig Wilson also work on the ODF summer fire crew, meaning a fifth of ODF’s 14-person crew are teachers in the Sweet Home School District.
Schilling’s own father, Steve Hummer, fought fires in the summers while working as a history teacher at SHHS. She started when she was 18, fighting fires in the summers during her college years.
“I think teachers like to work for the community, so they’re drawn to it,” Schilling said. It also pairs well with teaching because fire season coincides with summer break, she said.
“It’s a nice change of pace,” she added. “It’s exciting, it’s physical and I like working with all these different types of people.”
But still, teaching comes first for Schilling.
“It’s my career,” she said, noting she’s been at it for four years, three so far in Sweet Home. She just finished her last shifts at ODF over the weekend, but she only stayed on that late due to the apocalyptic circumstances of Labor Day’s unusual windstorm.
Though this year’s third grade class doesn’t know about her firefighting alter-ego yet, previous years of students have appreciated her side job.
“They think it’s pretty cool,” she said. “There’s not as many women in firefighting as men, and I would like them, especially the girls in the group, to get to see women in jobs like that.”
Asked if she feels as heroic as the community sees her and other firefighters to be, Schilling laughed.
“I don’t feel like that. I’m just doing my job.”