Scott Swanson
Fresh off some instruction from Oregon Department of Forestry firefighters on how to manage portable water reservoirs, Sweet Home senior Devon Dixon was looking forward to lunch on Thursday, April 2, during the annual fire school hosted by the Sweet Home Forestry Club.
Dixon and 81 other forestry students from seven Oregon high schools spent 2½ days at Camp Tadmor and in surrounding forests learning how to fight wildland fires. Their instructors were nine ODF staffers from Sweet Home, Springfield and Philomath.
“It’s been pretty interesting,” said Devon Dixon, who said he’s worked in the woods since seventh grade and whose mother is an ODF dispatcher.
“It takes a kid like me off hillside. Other sutdents don’t have a chance. They live in neighborhoods. This gives them an opportunity to see what’s going on out there, to see if they like it.”
Sweet Home Forestry Club adviser Dustin Nichol said the event, the fourth hosted by the local club, went off “very well.”
The three-day event included classroom instruction in fire behavior, careers in forestry, preparing resumes and for job interviews, field exercises in setting up water reservoirs and hoses and using them to douse fires in a recently logged area on the north side of Marks Ridge, dirt, compass and pacing, and fire table, on which miniature houses and burning conifer needles are used to demonstrate fire behavior.
They also competed in a water bag relay race, carrying a couple of gallons of water in a backpack and squirting it into a bucket to see which team could do it fastest.
Neil Miller, ODF Sweet Home Unit forest protection supervisor, said the camp is helpful not only to expose young residents to fire safety practices but also for recruitment.
“Helps in that we may be able to glean some of the kids out of here, once they get to be 18,” he said. “It’s a good opportunity for them to see if this is something they want to do as a career – working for us, maybe.
“Some of these kids may not be going into firefighting. But it exposes them to equipment, helps them learn what to do if a fire happens.”
Rob Waibel, a 1983 Sweet Home High School graduate who has competed in professional logging competitions, brought 15 students from Rex Putnam, Milwaukie and Clackamas high schools through the Sabin-Schellenberg Professional Technical Center forestry program, which he teaches.
Waibel noted that the fire school has been held for 40 years, but until four years ago it was conducted by the Oregon Department of Education and Keep Oregon Green, both of which stopped funding it in 2012, when Nichol took it on.
“What used to be run by 10 people with a large budget is now run by one person with no budget,” Waibel said. “The moral of the story is Dustin Nichol is an amazing human being.”
For senior Julie Morgan of Sweet Home, last week was her fourth fire school.
“I love being up here every year,” said Morgan, a leader in the Forestry Club who is considering attending Oregon State University on an ROTC scholarship and possibly pursuing a career in law enforcement or as a forest ranger.
“It’s refreshing, getting away from regular classes. This is the stuff I’m interested in. I’m up here with friends, with people I get along with.”
She noted that attending Fire School is a privilege.
“There are close to 20 kids on the (Forestry Club) team and 10 are here. You have to be committed to the team and you can’t have failing grades.
“This is all about safety and responsibility. If you can’t prove you’re responsible at school, Mr. Nichol won’t let you come out here.