Local man assisted in Oregon firefighting efforts

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This article was published 07/10/2020 (1816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

By Jamie Mountain

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

OREGON – A local man was among those from Canada who were recently deployed to help their American counterparts battle wildfires in Oregon.

Chuck Ingleton of New Liskeard is currently a fire crew leader with Parks Canada, an organization he has been a part of for six years, and is among a crew that was dispatched by the Province of Ontario to help fight the Lionshead Fire on September 18.

“Parks Canada sent some individual positions as well as a 20-person fire crew and that’s what I’m part of,” Ingleton explained in a telephone interview.

“They have me actually leading the 20-person fire crew down here.”

The fire was sparked by lightning and started on August 16 in Lionshead Canyon on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation, about 14 miles (22.5 kilometres) west of the Warm Springs community.

A historic windstorm then arrived in the area on Monday, September 7, which caused the fire to rapidly spread west to the Willamette, Deschutes and Mt. Hood National Forests.

The fire has heavily impacted several communities in the Santiam drainage and Breitenbush area, including the loss of 264 residential homes in Detroit, Oregon.

Highly valued natural and cultural resources also have been threatened.

“It’s very massive, I think it’s listed at 205,000 acres,” Ingleton said of the blaze.

“It’s very uncommon for them to get fires of this size here. It’s been a real challenge just because of the size of the fire, so they’ve been daily trying to prioritize where best to put the resources to try to stop the spread so that it doesn’t push out and threaten any more structures and homes and people’s livelihoods.”

As of October 1, the fire was listed as 204,367 acres in size and had been 35 per cent contained.

CHALLENGES

“This fire has grown into some communities, there’s been some structures lost,” Ingleton noted.

“Quite a bit of devastation to the area. It’s been a challenge, it’s a little bit different from us being here from Parks Canada. A lot of us are used to having water to use on fires and pumps and hoses, whereas here it’s a bit more of a challenge just with the mountains. There’s not near as much water (we can use), so it’s a lot of hand tool work, working alongside with engines to supply us water, digging up the ground with hand tools. The fire is burning extremely deep, it’s following roots and some places it’s two to three feet underground, so trying to dig that up to stop the fire from popping up and taking off again. It’s been a real struggle, for sure.”

WORKING IN UNISON

Ingleton, who has been fighting forest fires for 26 years in total, said that since being deployed his fire crew has worked in partnership with their American colleagues.

They’ve found the relationship to be very rewarding.

“We’ve had the opportunity to work with Americans from all over the United States because it’s been a real struggle for them here the last month,” he remarked.

“Oregon, Washington and California have all had major fires take off in the last month and this time of year typically some of the firefighting staff are students going back to school, some have other winter jobs and stuff. They’re kind of losing some of their numbers and now they got these major fires, they just didn’t have the resources to deal with it properly and man-up these fires but it’s been great meeting some of the Americans from different parts of the U.S., they’re all so grateful.”

Ingleton said that even when his crew is grabbing a coffee on their way out to the fire in the morning, or if they have to stop somewhere in a parking lot, the locals and American firefighters are “very grateful for their help.

“We get thanked daily from the public to the firefighters and from the incident command staff. It’s been overwhelming, just the positivity and support for us being down here,” he said.

“It’s been great.”

He’d been to the United States about 10 years ago to help with other fires but he and the crew didn’t really know what to anticipate in Oregon.

“We were kind of uncertain what to expect but once we got here and got into the system and got on the ground working, we fit in very well,” he noted.

“It’s been very rewarding. Like even today (October 1) at the morning briefing they were taking their hats off to us and just thanking us so much for our hard work.”

COMING BACK HOME

While his crew has enjoyed their time helping to fight the Lionshead Fire, Ingleton said that they are looking forward to coming back home to Canada.

“Some of us are flying out tomorrow (October 2),” he said.

“By Saturday all of the Canadian resources should be back across the border.”

From there the crew members will go into a 14-day quarantine, but it will be made a little easier by being able to see their families again.

“It was neat to have all these different fire crews come together from across the country and work together as one unit,” Ingleton enthused.

“It’s just great to see how we all came together to achieve some great positive work down here and we felt proud we had the opportunity to do it.”