Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District’s staff has undergone changes at the top with the replacement of officers who retired, the latest Eli Harris who has been named battalion chief.
Harris succeeds Ken Weld, who retired at the end of 2014; and Adam Hummer succeeds Harris as a paramedic. They began acting in their positions in January and were hired to their positions permanently on July 1.
Hummer, 26, has been with SHFAD for seven years. He started as resident volunteer EMT-firefighter and then became a part-time EMT-firefighter. He earned his paramedic certification from Chemeketa Community College in 2010.
Hummer, a 2007 Sweet Home High School graduate, also worked for the Oregon Department of Forestry Sweet Home Unit for seven summers. He was an engine boss and most recently a forest officer.
“I started in the fire service because my uncle (Steve Hummer) called me and said I should apply for the ODF job,” Hummer said. “I liked it. It’s fire. It’s fun. Who doesn’t like fire? The initial attack, knocking down the flames, is fun.”
Although, he admits digging fire lines is not much of a thrill.
Hummer said he started talking to Chief Dave Barringer about a career in firefighting. Barringer told him that he needed to also learn the medical side of the service.
“I didn’t really have an interest in the medical till I started school,” Hummer said, adding that he is now.
He likes “interacting with the patients and always dealing with something different,” Hummer said, and he enjoys helping people out.
He is working on becoming an acting-in-capacity lieutenant now, he said. If an officer is needed, he can act as a lieutenant on an engine once he achieves that status.
He looks forward to moving up that ladder, but “I like where I am now. I don’t want to move up too quickly,” Hummer said.
Harris, 36, has been in Sweet Home since 2004, after his discharge from the Army. He joined SHFAD as a volunteer in October 2004.
He grew up in Bend, graduating high school through Central Oregon Community College in 1997. He joined the Army in 1999 and completed two combat tours, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, as part of the 82nd Airborne.
Harris is married to Heather Harris, formerly Lang, who lived in Sweet Home through the sixth grade. She moved to Bend, and the two attended the sixth grade together there.
After his military service, Harris and his wife moved to Sweet Home with plans to attend Oregon State University. They wanted to live in a small “home” town rather than Corvallis.
“We were staying with the Tylers (Nick and family) while our house was being finished,” Harris said. Nick Tyler told him that being a volunteer firefighter was a good way to get plugged into the community and find that same camaraderie he had in the military.
Harris signed up, and quickly abandoned civil engineering in favor of fire science and emergency medicine. He earned his associate’s degree in general studies from Linn-Benton Community College in 2006 and associate’s degree in applied science from Chemeketa Community College in 2007.
He became an intern medic, and then SHFAD hired him as a paramedic in June 2007.
“Sweet Home became home,” Harris said. “I still love Bend. We have family there, but this is our home.”
They kind of resisted that for a while, and Harris said he was looking at a job in Redmond. That didn’t pan out. They sold their home, which was small, and bought a new one that his wife loved.
“I saw her face,” he said. “I thought, ‘She might stay here.’”
Since then, it’s become “home.”
Harris said he kind of resisted the idea of being a battalion chief at first, too. He liked his job as company lieutenant, and he felt like battalion chief would take him off the line.
“What I saw when Dave Barringer (becoming chief last year), I saw a spot that I could fit into,” Harris said. The SHFAD is in transition right now, and Harris believes he can help make decisions through the transition, changing directions at the same time, together, although “I don’t have all of the answers.”
He has stayed in the service for the people, he said. “I do like being in the public service, that protection between our public and an emergency.”
But it’s the people in the department, the firefighters and the department-wide family.
“In this fire department specifically, we’re very close,” Harris said. The department asks a lot of its members, who fight fires, drive ambulances and participate and train in water and rope rescue, wildland fire fighting and vehicle rescue.
“We expect all that,” he said. “That much dedication, passion and volunteerism creates camaraderie. I’ve always been drawn to that big family atmosphere.”
Harris and Heather have three daughters: Madison, 11; Katriona 7; and Eveline, 4.