Fire Chief Mic Eby, the longest tenured member of the Hoodland Fire District (HFD), joined the district in 1979 as a volunteer. He’s drawn maps, staffed the Government Camp station and responded to a vast array of calls and community emergencies over the years, from car wrecks to floods and more.

One memorable event happened in his first years with the district when a
storm dropped approximately eight feet of snow in 72 hours. Firefighters
stayed at the station, working six hours and then sleeping for four, while
utilizing the wood stove for heat, cooking and to dry out clothes on four
clotheslines.

The station had a generator at the time, which was a necessity to keep the
radio and coffee machine running.

“That was the most important part,” Eby said.

He remembers snowshoeing to houses in the community, especially since the
snowmobiles they had sometimes worked, but sometimes didn’t, while in
lighter times the firefighters would jump off a backstop behind the station into
the vast depths of snow and built an igloo to bury their supply of meat given
to them by Thriftway (all the food at the store was rotting). And through it all,
the district’s greatest strength, the sense of community, shone through.

“We were isolated, so we became a tight community at that time,” Eby said.
“We found out how hearty the mountain people are.”

The district will celebrate its 50 years of service from 2-4 p.m. Saturday,
Sept. 24, at the main station, 69634 Hwy. 26 in Welches. The event will
include refreshments, a dedication and a number of officials from throughout
the state.

50 years of change
The district today would seem extremely different to those responders from
the time of its formation. Lane Wintermute joined the district as a volunteer in
1971 when he and a friend spoke to the chief, who said they should join.
Wintermute and his friend went to the station and signed up.

“That was the recruitment process at the time,” said Wintermute, who would
later become the district’s chief and is now a life member. “Today, you go
through a lot more.”

When Eby joined, he estimated there was about 40 hours of training, but
today volunteers go through more than 400, not to mention the necessary
certifications. Eby noted it was around the time he joined that the district
started the transition between the “good ol’ boys,” who enjoyed hanging out
at the station, to a more professional organization.

“People were trying to get smart about fire and medical, trying to make a
difference when I first joined,” Eby said, noting the fire district merged with
the Hoodland Rescue group right before he came on board.

Pat McAbery started at HFD as an explorer in 1982 and is now a Battalion
Chief, and remembers that in his youth, there was no 9-1-1 service in the
district. Those in need of help could call a number that would ring the phone
at every volunteer’s house, leading to times when nobody was around to
answer a call, and other times when everybody picked up at the same time.
McAbery described the equipment today as, “mind-numbingly different,”
including bigger and better rigs and also the advent of dispatching responders
via smartphones.

Conversely, McAbery notes the district’s volunteer ranks were greater in the
past, with as many as 60 in some years. When calls came in, McAbery (as an
explorer), would try to tag along on an extra seat in the rig, if it was open.
“I got bumped a lot, because the rig filled up,” he said. “Not the case now.”
The nature of calls has also shifted dramatically, with early fires consuming
mostly products made from natural materials, including wood, wool and
cotton. Today, building fires feature items made from plastics and chemicals,
which burn hotter, brighter and faster.

“It’s a lot nastier now,” Eby said.

The district also saw an increase in paid staff, as recalled by Larry Eckhardt,
the Fire Chief from 1991 to 2002. With most volunteers working out of the
district during the day, Eckhardt (who passed away in early August) increased
staffing to meet the demand.

“We worked hard to improve our level of service and our commitment to the
community,” said Eckhardt in an interview with the Mountain Times earlier
this summer.

The district was also quick to adopt new trends in firefighting, including
incident command structure, training for disasters and implementing the first
advanced life support rescue service in east Clackamas County in the mid
1980s.

“That was something that was unheard of in the area at the time and really a
substantial accomplishment,” Wintermute said.

For the next 50 years, Eby sees a number of potential changes, from a new
station that will better fit the equipment and personnel and increases in the
volunteer and professional ranks, to more homes and commercial buildings
with sprinkler systems and improvements to Hwy. 26 to make it safer.
A unique district

Hwy. 26 is one of the defining features of the district, while other challenging
aspects include the fact that volunteers are so spread out, being bordered by
just one other fire district (Sandy) and a topography that includes an
elevation range from 900 to 4,000 feet, causing roads to be wet in one place
but icy in others. And in addition to snowstorms, floods and large scale fires,
such as the Golden Poles fire in 2015, the highway has offered countless
memorable moments throughout the year.

McAbery remembers one call when a logging truck couldn’t make the turn at
Map Curve, resulting in a rollover crash with the driver trapped in the cab
under the logs. Firefighters had to cut up the lumber before extracting him
from the cab.

“That was a spectacular wreck,” McAbery said.

Eckhardt lamented the “driving habits” of people who visited the mountain,
but also the scenic beauty of the district, including that same part of the
highway that bore witness to numerous crashes.

“I remember my amazement the first time on Hwy. 26 I saw Map Curve and
understood why it was called Map Curve,” he said.

But throughout the changes, the calls and the disasters, those who have
served point to the sense of community as the quintessential aspect of the
district, from volunteers pitching in to help build each other’s houses to the
district’s support group and its late night meals for hungry firefighters to any
one of the thousands of calls from the past 50 years.

“What was always very special to me was the sense of family and community
within the fire department,” Wintermute said. “I kind of took it for granted
until later when I left to three other fire departments. I found out it wasn’t
that way in other fire departments.”